Meet the third ever recorded individual of Sollman's Cave Milipede, and the first individual spotted in over 25 years.
Scoterpes sollmani (common name Sollman's Cave Milipede), is a likely cryptic species belonging to the genus Scoterpes. This species, described by Dr. Jerry Lewis in August of 2000, only had two recorded individuals, the holotype (specimen used to describe the species), and a secondary individual as a backup.
In April of 2026, on a fun trip to the Harrison-Crawford State Forest in Indiana, I noticed this millipede on the wall in a passage which previously connected two larger caves, but is now covered by a rock pile. I asked my colleague and friend Lazaro from the Indiana Herpetological Society to take a photo just in case. After consulting with Dr. Lewis, he confirmed that this was only the third ever sighting of this species since it's initial description in the year 2000.
The genus Scoterpes is distributed mainly across Tennessee, Kentucky, and extreme-Southern Indiana. I personally believe that the genus extends pretty far into Indiana, but I don't have data to support this yet. My specialty is not invertebrates.
I have attached some pictures of the morphology of the species.