You don’t often see velvet worms (Onychophora)! Arianna is currently sorting the arthropods from litter extractions of the Reassembly plots. We got excited to see the first velvet worm in this sample. Only few onychophorans are known from Ecuador so far. Fernando Villagomez immediately looked for some morphological details and made these great micropscopic pictures. It seems to be a species of Oroperipatus. A second specimen has appeared, and they’re looking for more. Stay tuned or contact us if you are interested in this uncommon, facinating taxon.
