Whose fragments of exoskeleton are these?
These are the remains of millipedes! Notice the two pairs of legs for most body segments. This helps identify the creatures as slow-moving, decaying-vegetation-consuming millipedes and not their quick, carnivorous centipede relatives who have one pair of legs per body segment.
Millipedes spend most of their time hidden away in moist, secluded spots munching on decaying leaves and wood. So why would all these dead millipedes be exposed on this rock and twig? Perhaps they were infected with a parasitic fungus! The genus of this fungus, Arthrophaga, translates to “arthropod devourer.” True to its name, before killing the millipede, the fungus is able to control the millipede to climb to a high point that will presumably help the fungi’s spores spread far and wide. Within a day of the millipede’s death, the spores all have been discharged, leaving an “enigmatic husk” of a millipede or a jumble of disjointed segments.
During the short window of spore production, the Arthrophaga fungus bulges between the millipede’s body segments.