A new centipede species described from Tbilisi National Park
Schendyla megobroba is a centipede new to science, described from specimens collected in Tbilisi National Park. The same find is the first record of the family Schendylidae in Georgia.
Researchers from the Institute of Zoology at Ilia State University, together with a colleague from Belgrade, have described a new centipede (Chilopoda) species, Schendyla megobroba. The specimens were collected in Tbilisi National Park. The paper was published in Zootaxa on 28 July 2026.
A new centipede from Tbilisi National Park
The paper was published in Zootaxa on 28 July 2026 (volume 5857, issue 1, pages 169–180). Its authors are Eleonora Kiria and Shalva Barjadze of the Institute of Zoology, Ilia State University, and Dalibor Z. Stojanović of the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade.
The new species, Schendyla megobroba, was described from specimens collected in Tbilisi National Park. It has no Georgian common name yet, so here it is simply called a centipede. Centipedes (Chilopoda) are a separate group of arthropods and belong neither to the spiders nor to the insects.
A family not known from Georgia until now
Schendyla megobroba belongs to the family Schendylidae. No member of this family had been recorded in Georgia before, so the find adds not only a new species but also a new family to the country's fauna.
A checklist of Georgian centipedes was published in 2023, and Eleonora Kiria and Shalva Barjadze were among its authors. Schendylidae were not yet on that list. Three years later, work by the same researchers has added a new family to the country's centipede list.
How it differs from related species
According to the authors, the new species differs from other members of its genus in the number of leg pairs. Details of the mouthparts and of the last pair of legs also set it apart.
The paper also includes a key to all currently valid species of the genus Schendyla. A key is a step-by-step table that leads from a specimen's characters to its species name. It helps later researchers tell this species from the others in new material.
Why this matters for Georgia
A new family and a new species from Tbilisi National Park show how much remains unstudied among the small animals of the soil. In this case, the find was made in a protected area close to the capital.
A species description brings together a scientific name, a detailed account of the animal, and a comparison with other species. With that in place, Schendyla megobroba can be recognised in other studies, and its distribution can be studied further. For now, its known specimens come from Tbilisi National Park.
