Velvet Worm – Peripatopsidae sp, Palm Grove National Park.
This standout creature was filmed seven years ago.
It remains the one and only velvet worm I have encountered.
I didn’t know what I was looking at, but fortunately Jaap Vogel told me what it was.
By the time I had set up my camera, the rather non-descript patch of matter had uncoiled itself and started to move.
Velvet worms have been on earth, largely unchanged, for about 500 million years.
They are more closely related to insects and spiders than to segmented worms.
Worldwide only 200 species are known, of which Australia appears to have the lion’s share with 74 described species.
By Peter Kuttner
