New millipedes + ID?

[Criteria]

Hi all,

New to the board, and to millipedes for that matter, but have been lurking and doing reaserch for the last week or two while i've built my millipede tank.

Got my first polydesmida today and got them settled in. They seem happy enough, as they were mating in the first hour after having a feed and getting their bearings.

I'm pretty sure they're Rhododesmus Mastophorus, but can anyone ID them for me to be sure?

 

[Criteria]

Wouldn't let me embed my gallery for some reason.

 

[Criteria]

So, one of my millipedes appears to have gone into hiding just 3 days after I got them.

Can someone confirm this pic I took on the first day is mating?

Is it too soon for her to go to ground?

Thanks.

 

[BuzzSwole]

Yes that is courting but ya she probably just goin down for a molt

 

[Arthroverts]

Nope, not courting, they are mating. Courting involves the male sitting on top of the female, but in the photo the male is inserting his gonopods into the female, thus inseminating her.

How much rotting wood do you have in there? Polydesmids need a substrate and food source comprised of close to a 100% rotting hardwood, and I see very little in there.

Hope this helps,

Arthroverts

 

[Criteria]

Nope, not courting, they are mating. Courting involves the male sitting on top of the female, but in the photo the male is inserting his gonopods into the female, thus inseminating her.

How much rotting wood do you have in there? Polydesmids need a substrate and food source comprised of close to a 100% rotting hardwood, and I see very little in there.

Hope this helps,

Arthroverts

Thanks for confirming that! I suspect I have two females and a male because I've seen further mating just yesterday. Hopefully I'll have some new arrivals in the not too distant future!

Also, just to update, from what I can tell their breed is actually Coromus diaphorus from Tanzania.

It's by no means 100% rotting wood, but there is a lot of it in there. I mixed a fair amount of aspen bedding and plenty of rotting oak leaves into the substrate (a Coco/creature soil mix - the creature soil came with the tank) and then added roughly 30-35% white rotting oak wood into the upper layer of the substrate too.

On top of this I added another layer of rotting oak leaves in various levels of decay (layered), plenty of moss with some rotting oak branches and moss/lichen covered oak bark.

I've spent a lot of time observing them and they absolutely love munching on moss roots - litterally stripping whole clumps off the bark to access the roots and pretty much shredding it with only the green tips left. It's really impressive to watch, I'll try to get some video of it. There's obviously something in the bark they like too, as they can often be seen/heard scraping at it. They also eat the rotting oak leaves quite frequently.

 

[Criteria]

I can't seem to get a decent video, but here's some pics of them eating moss roots.

If there's moss available they go for it over anything else as far as I can tell.

 

[Arthroverts]

Interesting. Let us know how they do, it'd be awesome if we could get more polydesmids established and breeding in the hobby.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[BuzzSwole]

I’ve tried breeding the smaller flats several different ways and still have had zero luck. Longest lived one was 3 month I did find the ones with moss were far more active