A peculiar predator skulks across the forest floor. It’s dreadfully slow, but the cover of darkness — and leaf litter — keeps it hidden. It glides along dozens of stumpy legs, but it’s no centipede: ...

A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the ...

Researchers discovered a rare kind of protein modification in the slime of velvet worms, a finding that could one day help scientists make plastics and glues more recyclable. Velvet worms shoot sticky ...

A velvet worm (Epiperipatus acacioi) unfurls its folded mouth papillae—one of which is shown here—to squirt an oscillating jet of slime for prey capture and self-defense. (Scale bar = 100 microns) ...

Scientists have described the first new species of Ecuadorian velvet worm in more than 100 years. Named the Tiputini velvet worm (Oroperipatus tiputini), it was discovered in the lowland forests of ...

In March 2022, Stellenbosch University (SU) student Rohan Barnard was out and about on a farm in the Swartberg Mountains between Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, flipping over rocks looking for ants, ...

Small bugs of the rain forest have many things to worry about, assuming they are capable of anxiety. But surely some of their more feared predators are velvet worms, a group of ancient animals that ...

Peripatopsis barnardi represents the first ever species from the little Karoo, which indicates that the area was historically more forested than at present. It is one of seven new species from the ...