The Flat-backed Millipede is a slow-moving insect-like creature that has a flat segmented body and it belongs to a group of animals called ‘arthropods’. An arthropod has jointed legs, an external skeleton and a segmented body. The Flat-backed Millipede can be found throughout the country in warehouses, outbuildings and in gardens under leaf litters, in compost heaps and in rotting or dead wood.

The Flat-backed Millipede can grow between two to four centimetres in length and is normally dark brown, but sometimes it can be almost white in colour. It has a body that is divided into approximately fifteen segments and each segment holds two pairs of legs. The legs can sometimes be white, even if the top part of the body is brown. The Flat-backed Millipede has a short round head with two long sensitive antennae which help the millipede to find food.

The female Flat-backed Millipede lays her eggs in moist soil and the young hatch out after about two to three weeks. The young millipedes look almost grub-like when they first emerge. They have very few body segments and only three pairs of legs. Eventually they develop into mature adult Flat-backed Millipedes with all the fifteen segments and thirty pairs of legs.