#4869 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Common Pill Millipede
🇳🇱 Zwarte kogel ·Glomeris marginata
🪼 Jellyfish, starfish, worms & co 📍 in the Netherlands
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Glomeris marginata is a common European species of pill millipede. It is a short millipede, rounded in cross-section, which is capable of rolling itself up into a ball when disturbed. This behaviour is also found in the pill woodlouse Armadillidium , with which G. marginata is often confused.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 65 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: the #23 most seen of the jellyfish, starfish, worms & co in NL.
- 7,349 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Charles Joseph Devillers in 1789 (237 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Common Pill Millipede
- Nederlands
- Zwarte kogel
- scientific name
- Glomeris marginata
- class
- Diplopoda
- order
- Glomerida
- family
- Glomeridae
- sightings in NL
- 65
- sightings in Europe
- 6,560
- sightings worldwide
- 7,349
- GBIF records in NL
- 1,700
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1789 by Charles Joseph Devillers
relatives· Glomeridae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 56078, Wikidata Q1510105, GBIF 9728038, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.