Millipedes are important because they are decomposers.  Decomposers are creatures that breakdown dead organic material.  Decomposers provide us with an extremely important service.  By breaking down dead organic material - like wood, leaves and dead bodies - they free up life’s fundamental building blocks like carbon, nitrogen, and sugars that would otherwise be tied up as a pile of dead stuff.  We don’t even want to think what life would be like without decomposers - we would be wading through piles of dead things.  Luckily, all life decomposes and its matter gets recycled back into the ecosystem.  Millipedes help with that.  Other decomposers are fungi, slime molds, and importantly bacteria.  The picture above is a decomposing log in Sequoia National Park.  And the millipede Tylobolus has helped with its decomposition.  Millipedes are detritivores - meaning they feed on dead plant material like this log.  They’re like the little garbage men of the forest.  The round spherical structures are millipede frass (poop).  In addition to eating decaying logs and creating spherical frass, Tylobolus and related millipedes enrobe their tiny cream-colored eggs in their frass - like little cordial cherries.