Threatened arthropods and described. The total number of living arthropod species is probably in the tens of millions. One conservative estimate puts the number of arthropod species in tropical forests alone at six to nine million species. As a consequence of all of the above, most published estimates of the total number of endangered insects and arachnids are probably low by at least an order of magnitude. Conservatively at least eighty percent of all living animal species are arthropods. Since arthropods constitute the majority of the faunal biomass on Earth, their role is vital to the survival of large numbers of insectivores
Myriapoda which are mutually exclusive, and all of which represent hypotheses of evolutionary relationships. Traditional relationships supported by morphological similarities (anatomical or developmental similarities) are challenged by newer relationships supported by molecular evidence (including DNA sequence and amino acid similarities). Myriapoda Myriapoda is a subphylum of arthropods containing millipedes, centipedes, and others. The group contains over 16,000 species, most of which are terrestrial. Although their name suggests they have myriad (10,000) legs, myriapods range from having up to 750 legs (the millipede "Illacme plenipes") to having fewer than ten legs. The fossil record of myriapods reaches back into the late Silurian,