#ads_millipedes

[adragonsoulants]

Baby millipede

Made a sperate container to put a few american giant babies in as the parent container has a huge mite infestation and I was worried about it hurting some of the babies. However as I was looking around I noticed the mites mostly stayed on the surface and just below the surface was loaded with a healthy spring tail population!

The baby bin has millipede frass in it to hopefully ensure good gut health of the babies!

[adragonsoulants]

Buggies got some good squash meals today! All grown myself too :)

Male MHC clutching a little piece of squash flesh, didn't want to risk loosing it!

And the other detritivores got a great treat out of it too!

The ants today all largely got their last meals before hibernation, going to be tucking the lot of them into the fridge in the next couple of days here.

Still on the fence with the C. Subarbatus colony, I have them reduced down to just a testtube and they have shown 0 interest in the protein I've offered, I might try a mealworm in a couple days to see if they would prefer that instead.

[adragonsoulants]

A photo shoot for the springtail enjoyers (yellow slime is just nutritional yeast, food for them)

Plus a bonus baby N. Americanus millipede

[adragonsoulants]

Little baby alert!!!

Narceus americanus baby

[adragonsoulants]

Today I discovered my Smokey Oaks have babies!!

Best photos I could get through the side of their bin, I'll try putting some cucumber in there in the next few days to see if I can get them up to the surface!

[adragonsoulants]

Managed to get some millipede photos today! Little guy could smell cucumber on my finger and was trying to eat it!

Dw he got the cucumber in the end.

Uploading some videos of the lil guy trying to eat my finger. I'll have those up here in a little bit.

[adragonsoulants]

I was giving the arthropods some carrots and other foods and opened the millipede container to see little babies crawling around on the bark I have in there!

It's so cool how transparent they are!

One of them next to their assumed father haha!

So exciting to see that the millipedes are doing so well, I was a little worried after I didn't see any of the adults for a few weeks but they were probably just molting or hanging out under the soil.

[adragonsoulants]

Guess what... I managed to find some more millipedes at a reptile expo

This time some Smokey Oaks 👀

The one in my hand started nibbling me right as I took them out of the container. was very hungry I take it, it was the only one that went to town on the cucumber slice I gave them.

Yay :3

[adragonsoulants]

Some buggy photos

Millipedes enjoying a cucumber. Can see a little baby trying to get some too.

Some crude photos of the P. Floria, just enamored by their shine. They're also quite skilled at climbing smooth plastic (for an isopod that is). Also looks like a couple of them are gravid too.

I got to see one of their sheds a couple days ago and it was so cool looking!

[adragonsoulants]

I got some millipedes today, and my god, I love them. They're so chill and of all the critters I've had crawling in my hands these guys are suprisingly pleasant to handle! Big enough that it's not like ticklish but they feel almost like a real soft valcro...

Don't know if it's something easily described...

Anyways, Giant pink footed millipedes or Narceus americanus !

Got 3 total, 2 females and a male

The male decided the cup was better to nibble on than the tub I set up for them.

Their current setup is a little bit makeshift sense I couldn't get my hands on some organic compost and I didn't want to keep them in the cup until tomorrow so I just used normal soil from outside and pasteurized it. Otherwise it's got leaves and a good bit of hydrated wood pellets, calcium powder, and a handful of rotting wood flakes mixed into the soil. And added springtails!

Also I've seen alot of sites list using Coco coir in their soil mixes but when I asked the breeder what he recommended for soil he was pretty clear that Coco coir is pretty bad for them and can cause digestive issues leading to a premature death sense it's indigestible to them... So I guess do your own research but from what I know it's pretty non-nutritional to detritivores including isopods too.

[adragonsoulants]

I think I'm going to end up building a little terrarium set up for my P. Floria isopods. They are SO pretty and are fairly active on the surface and also appear to want to climb up high. I'll probably give them part of an egg carton for now.

Funny enough I see them around the houses foundation a lot similarly to the wild P. Spinicornis, so maybe I'll try to model parts of the terrarium after that 🤔 maybe even break up some bricks and use them as the tank backing

I still have to set up my co-hab millipede tank but that's going to take some more research and a bit of remodeling in my room 💀

[adragonsoulants]

Nvm I got some more cucumber munching pictures👀

The Zebras are all over it, can hardly see the cucumber underneath lol. Can see that one random Armadillidium in with the P. Spinicornis too, I think Armadillidium must like it a bit more than Porcellio.

Some more of the millipedes munching too

[adragonsoulants]

I wasn't satisfied with the substrate for the millipedes (it was a tad shallow and packing itself kinda dense) but I couldn't find anywhere that had organic compost to do a full replace with. Plus one of the millipedes kept trying to climb out, so something wasn't right. I added a lot more crushed leaves and also a lot of worm castings, I've read of some people using this as an alternative to compost for them.

I gave them a cucumber for disturbing them (and the isopods too but no pictures)

The one millipede stopped trying to climb out after the soil addition and the others have been doing bits of digging around so I think the worm castings and more leaves helped.

[adragonsoulants]

Hi, been a while since I did an update. Been dealing with some mental shit and then I got covid on top of it. Thankfully over covid now.

For the most part all the colonies are doing fine. Gotta make sure I feed the Campos a little extra now so they can get some good reserves going into hibernation! The C. Subbarbatus colony is doing well and I am in love with their colorations, not used to having ants this small too but they're very cute!

All the colonies I'm founding this year have been moved back to my room as the night time temps were getting too cold to keep them where they were. All but the P. Imparis and C. Subbarbatus are in a box near my snake's heat source to keep them a little warmer.

Sadly the T. Immigranis queen passed recently, she was doing pretty well but prior to the move ate all her brood and was behaving real stressed, looked like she had been doing better but I guess not.

Nothing much on the other girls, still too soon on the Lasius and Formica's are very easy to stress out, tbh I might just move her to the closest with the others even tho it's not as warm it will be more calm of an environment.

The remaining two P. Imparis queens had the brood growing mold return... I also discovered one of the queens appears to have a stiff leg with mold growing on the joint of it, so she may be the reason for it's continuous return... It was recommended I separate them in hopes of having one make it and give extra ventilation to the moldy one to try and clear out the mold or at least hinder it.

I definitely didn't realize how easy Camponotus was to care for compared to other species, or that I've just been having some really bad luck with it this year.

But I still look back in awe of having randomly found the C. Subbarbatus queen earlier this year, an ant species I have never seen before and have yet to see in the wild. As well as having 0 issues with founding her colony.

So I guess I'll take that at least. ^^

Also fed a super worm to my C. Penn and they gladly feasted on it, read in a few places that they didn't like super worms but they didn't even hesitate.

As far as isopods go they're all doing alright, dairy cows are getting pretty munchy and I need to top off their leaves fairly frequently. Had a flour mite issue arise from trying to raise meal worms myself, they made it into two of my iso containers that didn't have mesh ventilation and just holes punched into the lids. Cleaned up best I could, I don't think they really made it down in the container itself. Did have to freeze the mealworms though, no saving that.

My pink foot millipedes alas have had an ongoing mite problem for a little bit now, I believe the mites are harmless to the millipedes but they are definitely annoyed by their presence and hate when the mites are crawling on them. I've seen a few in my Smokey Oaks but I've been keeping it a little drier to try and cut back on them and stop them from exploding like they did in the other tank.

Long winded post, thanks for reading this far ^^

[adragonsoulants]

Lil millipede video of this one who did not want to sit still what so ever. Had a hard time getting them off my hand lol