#creepie.creatures

millipedes are detritivores! this means they eat decaying plant matters, land isopods (roly-polys/pillbugs/etc) are another example of this. (tho they r crustaceans and not bugs!) so these silly guys just eat dead leaves n rotting wood and dirt <3 people often think of centipedes bc they look similar (they are in the same subphylum "Myriapoda"), but centipedes are predators and eat other bugs! they are also venomous which is super cool, and r often p aggressive. house centipedes r an exception tho they're like babies, u don't gotta worry about them

anyway back to millipedes, for defense they firstly curl up in balls to protect themself, they also do this when sleeping :] here's two of mine sleeping <3 their head is tucked in the middle, then all their legs curl around it ough

BUT ALSO!!! they throw up toxic stuff for defense! some of them throw up literal cyanide HOW METAL IS THAT!!! some species also have pores on the side of their body, and a certain species expels creosote from that for defense! it's all too weak to hurt ppl, the most it does is stain ur hands. but for a millipede sized predator like a mouse or smth it could save the millipede!

millipedes also loveeeeee being together <3 it's probably partly for defense, bc a lot of u throwing up toxins together has a higher chance of beating an enemy ❤️‍🔥 but they also just totally hang out together it's rlly cute :(((

here's more pics of mine hanging out 2gether <3

millipede reproduction is so interesting but would take a Long time to talk about and i'm kinda lazy to type it up. but they do "hug" when they mate, the female passes her eggs to the male who fertilizes them w his gonopods, then she takes them back. some millipedes create these cells out of chewed up food to place a single egg in, it looks almost exactly like millipede poop, so it disguises n hides them! in some species the female digs underground, makes a little cave and lays her eggs. then curls up around them until they hatch <3 it's v sweet

also some millipedes can be easily sexed by looking at their 7th segment, the males have an enlarged segment they call a saddle. both of the species i keep (Florida Ivory + American Giant) are examples of this

i put little arrows at the saddle :3 also male millipedes r just??? super horny??? and in captivity they'll just have gay sex even if female millipedes r in the same tank. they'll have gay sex with different Species even if there's females of Their species around. this happened w two of mine Masky n Grim lol, tho all of mine r male anyway. but they are two different species!

also they can live a rlly long time???? like florida ivory millipedes can live 10+ years in captivity which is Wild for a bug! most of them get to a certain size n stay around there, but some will continue to molt n grow their whole life.

also sometimes the springtails in my culture climb around the the millipedes and it annoys them so they thrash around to throw them off! it's so interesting 2 me bc i've never seen bugs get annoyed like that

also some species have a symbiotic relationship w a particular species of mite that is specific to them, and the mite crawls around on the millipede and keeps it clean :0 African Giant Millipedes r a rlly good example of this!

i have 2 millipedes rn, Masky the american giant (the brown one) n Zim the purple ivory millipede and they r both so sweet. they've never thrown up on me bc i'm careful w them. masky is more shy n hides a lot, one time he literally just ate a cucumber from underground instead of coming up??? i think he just hates being seen tbh

he takes a little while to wake up too, even tho i've picked him up it's like. it's so endearing he's still caught in his millipede dreams.... zim has been molting underground so i haven't seen him in like over a month (it takes a long time) but he's so friendly! never curls up when i pick him up, just keeps walking and exploring. and sometimes when they want a protein snack (they get fish food pellets lol) they will chew on my hand which just feels like a tickle bc their mouth parts aren't v strong

also there's flat millipedes and pill millipedes and feather millipedes and they're all so different and pretty and i love themmm