# velvet worm got huge.



## crashergs (Jun 29, 2006)

i had a couple of babies in their own container, almost translucent in color and left about 20 fruitflies in there, i finally opened it up after a week 1/2, and noticed they are two times bigger! im like wth?

heres a photo







im keeping them at about 61-62 since new zealand is kinda chilly right now. ( i dont live there, but have heard from a friend its cold temps.)


Can someone send me a peice of rotten wood? ill pay for price and shipping, rotten wood out here in the city is difficult to come by 

by the way,

i noticed specimens grouping up, especially babies and wait for killed prey from the larger ones and feast with eachother. it looks like they have a sense of smell or very good sense of touch. I put a fly through a needle, and let it sit there, one velvet was across the their container, it took about 2 1/2 minutes for her to finally reach the fly flapping its wings. still researching their habits, very intruiging.


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## kraken (Jun 29, 2006)

Man Those really are nice.I would love to have some,but I cant provide the right temps for them.I wish i could.Those really are nice and I cant say that enough!


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## Androctonus_bic (Jun 29, 2006)

This bugs are very beautiful. What specie is this one? Can you xplain terrarium conditions? 
Cheers
Carles


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## Randolph XX() (Jun 29, 2006)

is velvet worm myriapods?


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## Scythemantis (Jun 29, 2006)

Sort of. Velvet worms belong in their own group that insects are believed to have directly evolved from.

Due to the similar anatomy, it is also believed by many that the mighty Anomalocaris (the world's largest known predator during the cambrian period...three feet long) is just a big, marine velvet worm.


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## crashergs (Jun 30, 2006)

*zoomed up image of my velvet worm!*

*notice that velvet worms have eyes...... i wonder if they can see!*








this is the one that had babies.


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## crashergs (Jun 30, 2006)

*babies*

heres the babies... hard to zoom on, i need a macro


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## KennyGee (Jun 30, 2006)

What a beutiful velvet wow:clap: :drool:  
 also congrats for the babys :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:


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## crashergs (Jun 30, 2006)

hehe can u see her, its cute isnt it! lil wiggly babies, i spread the baby apart from the other ones, im trying to determine if they can reunite again.


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## KennyGee (Jun 30, 2006)

hey delete some of your messages in your inbox lol srry offtopic


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## Scorpendra (Jul 1, 2006)

aww, it's so cute with it's beady eyes and spongey skin .

how do you care for them?


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## crashergs (Jul 1, 2006)

8 bottle wine cooler, set to temp of 60-64F degrees, mild moist substrate, and moss.













*this is the new one, i merged all specimens in a larger rectangular plastic *


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## bugmankeith (Jul 2, 2006)

Wow are they normally that red color?


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## Kevin_Davies (Jul 2, 2006)

That red Peripatus is very nice 

I keep Peripatus, around 15 at the moment, from hatchlings to adults, some have some markings, but none of mine are that colour


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## crashergs (Jul 2, 2006)

what do you feed your babies? and how are you housing them to become so successful, so far im doing good, only 2 deaths due to shipping.

can you tell me your practice and what you feed, temperatures and such?


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## Kevin_Davies (Jul 2, 2006)

crashergs said:
			
		

> what do you feed your babies? and how are you housing them to become so successful, so far im doing good, only 2 deaths due to shipping.
> 
> can you tell me your practice and what you feed, temperatures and such?


The ones I have now Ive only kept a few weeks, but I have kept Peripatus before these ones, the last ones I had before these ones lived for about a year, and were fairly large sized adults when I got them, they didnt breed though, they may not have been a M/F pair im not sure? I now have several adults, and cb babies, the person I got them from was feeding them on pinhead and second size crickets, so ive continued to offer them those, they have plenty of hides, I keep them in a plastic tank, on the floor of my shed, the temperature stays cool, I spray them fairly heavilly daily, they all seem to be doing ok so far.


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## Scorpendra (Jul 2, 2006)

what does everyone else use to keep their peripatuses (peripati?) cool?


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## beetleman (Jul 2, 2006)

there's that winecooler that crashergs has and it seems to be working well with them  i just picked one of those little coolers up myself at target and it's definitly worth the $79.99  i spent  you should go that route if ya gonna keep them.


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## crashergs (Jul 2, 2006)

nice! beetleman, you got the same one i have????

it works great!

it drops temps below 60 degrees which i like...

ive been getting very good success, with a peripatus giving live birth, 

what im doing now is im going to invest in a night vision wireless camera, to actually see them hunt and mate, since it hasnt been documented or taped in history.  (at least i think)

I had to remove most of substrate because it was forming mold, and i determined the substrate was over saturated, also i cut a big hole at the top of my sterlite container, and grabbed some mesh screen and overlapped the screen 2 times and hot glued it so alot of air can go through but nothing comming out.


to answer molitor: i have mine set to 62 degrees.



i remember these were veryyy difficult to get on the pet trade EXTREMELY DIFFICULT, im relieved now.


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## Kevin_Davies (Jul 3, 2006)

crashergs said:
			
		

> what im doing now is im going to invest in a night vision wireless camera, to actually see them hunt and mate, since it hasnt been documented or taped in history.  (at least i think)


Ive seen a Peripatus hunting and eating its prey on a bbc documentary, i cant remember the name of the programme though, it might of been life in the undergrowth? they showed one firing glue at an insect, then eating it.


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## Scorpendra (Jul 3, 2006)

beetleman said:
			
		

> winecooler...$79.99


hence my asking. i'm sure that everyone who has these suckers doesn't tote an expensive icebox with them.


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## crashergs (Jul 3, 2006)

thats the least expensive way if your eviroment is not natually 55-67 degrees year round (for the new zealand species)

ive heard people wanting to purchase from me and put them in their basement where its always 60 something degrees.


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## crashergs (Jul 7, 2006)

update! all babies are grouped together, which clearly means they feed all together,

they tend to be by larger adult species of worms to scavenge left over parts, adults like to stay together in similar fashion of baby peripatus.

photos below:


*baby peripatus grouped together*













*adult male and two female peripatus living communally, sleeping together till i disturbed them, very very sensitive to light, the flash of my camera makes them scurry away into darkness*















*velvet worm habitat, with rotten wood provided to me by mr KennyGee on this forum, gladly appreciated kennyGee, you made my peripatus happy *


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## KennyGee (Jul 7, 2006)

Wow looks great , and it good it arrived ;P


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## crashergs (Jul 7, 2006)

a piece of kennygee is in my terrarium, NICE! :worship:


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## KennyGee (Jul 7, 2006)

U should soak the wood


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## bugmankeith (Jul 7, 2006)

There's a white bug on your worm...


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## kraken (Jul 7, 2006)

What kind of wood was it? Looks pine or something.


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## KennyGee (Jul 7, 2006)

Its Dougless Fir


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## bugmankeith (Jul 7, 2006)

Hellooooo! Is that bug biting your velvet worm?


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## KennyGee (Jul 7, 2006)

lol It looks like a little cricket.


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## bugmankeith (Jul 7, 2006)

Ok just checking to make sure your worm didnt get injured.


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## crashergs (Jul 7, 2006)

nah, the cricket is dead, it accidently fell on it when i moved the coconut half in which they were laying under 

its funny because ill put in about 10 pin head crickets, and next day i open it, bits and pieces of cricket all over the terrarium im like wow very clean eaters!


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## kliide (Aug 15, 2006)

*Life in the Undergrowth*

Just finished watching the first episode titled, "Invasion".  Totally amazed by the Peripatus hunting segment.  I can't imagine how powerful that glue must be.

For those of you who haven't watched the video, the peripatus captures a cricket that appears to be 1/4 its length with dual strands of glue.  It appears to wave the dual strands of glue in wavy spirals in order to cover a larger area of its prey.  The cricket, aside from a few twitches, appears instantly immobilized.  Given the size of the cricket, whose body girth was slightly larger than the peripatus, I'd have to say that glue is crazy strong...super, even .

Anyway, I was just curious what the largest prey item that anyone here has given their velvet worm.  The strength of the glue is really amazing.  It must be quite difficult to produce if the peripatus is induced to eat the glue off the prey after its been sprayed.  Does anyone know of studies that have been done to measure the strength of the glue?   My google-fu is weak, as I've had difficulty finding anything other than a one paragraph article stating some australian scientist believes the glue to be stronger than super glue.

Also, anyone have an infrared setup?  I don't know if it's been attempted, but there are extremely cheap web cams (~10-15USD) in China/HK that are for some reason infrared.  The image quality is 640x480 and quite clear.  I think there are some applications that have motion detection designed to trigger recording onto your pc.  Seems to be quite good for surreptitiously recording a nocturnal predator.

Anyhow, thanks for sharing the pics and best of luck raising all your velvet worms!


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## Snakefox (Aug 16, 2006)

Hi I saw that you need some rotten wood I live in houston texas a hot moist climmate and All the wood around here is rotten what would you like 
mesquite
oak
Peach
Pear
Maple


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## crashergs (Aug 24, 2006)

one of them molted, when it molts, it molts a very thin layer of white skin, i tried stretching it but it ripped, looks like a used condom   they are still growing, voravious predators thats for sure. i put 10 pinheads and all of them except for one was ripped in half and pieces of body parts spread around the perimiter of the crickets corpses. very intruiging.


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## Dark (Aug 25, 2006)

kliide said:
			
		

> Just finished watching the first episode titled, "Invasion".  Totally amazed by the Peripatus hunting segment.  I can't imagine how powerful that glue must be.


 I Just finished The First Episode about the Velvet Worms aswell, Were can one get a Velvet worm? 
Thanks 
Eric

(also can you feed them Crickets?)


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## crashergs (Aug 25, 2006)

first episode of velvet worm??  is that a show?

and its almost impossible to get velvet worms, and if you do.. chances of it living are slim to none, its not any ordinary pet as ive learned, it needs speacial temperatures for them to live and reproduce, within 50-63 degrees and rotten wood and moss, and they are highly prone to dying if mold occurs. ive had them for 4 months now with 5 babies doing good, very slow growers. Thankfully you can keep feeder corpses in their containers for about 2/3 days before mold becomes apparent, since temps are so low.

yes you can feed them crickets, i feed mine pin heads, fruit flies.


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## kliide (Aug 25, 2006)

*Oops*

I wish there was a series entitled "Velvet Worm", but no, it was just the first episode of the insect documentary, "Life in the Undergrowth".  The first episode in that documentary is called, "Alien Invasion".

Anyhow, I had a question as well.  Has anyone keeping velvet worms noticed residual glue on the prey items when their bodies are cleaned from the terrarium?  I'm guessing that the Velvet worms don't re-ingest all of the glue that they use to trap the prey.

Is it brittle?


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## crashergs (Aug 25, 2006)

i noticed that they will eat amongst the glue that they used to capture their prey, the rest of it is not eaten, ive noticed strands of glue that have retain their strength for some time before it just falls to the ground and becomes part of the terrarium.  they do hunt in packs ive noticed and they are sociable creature, they like to all hide together underneath a log, and serperate during eating sessions.


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## kliide (Aug 26, 2006)

*Neat!*

Neat! Thanks for the info. 

I'd love to raise these with some sort of infrared camera setup.  Their size doesn't seem too small to require any special lens.

Too bad, I'm not much of an invertebrate hobbyist.  I don't think I'll inflict my questionable care skills on anything that can't open a fridge and make sandwiches by itself.

So, thank you to the patient types out there who've put the care required into raising these interesting little guys.


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## crashergs (Jan 16, 2007)

so its been like 6 months now, and my peripatus are still alive!!!!

I dont feed them often as sometimes i forget about them, but when I do feed them, its like 1 time every 5 weeks and they still survive and molt. 

simply amazing!


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## Arachnophilist (Jan 16, 2007)

wow thats a very rare feeding! how long are they now?


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## crashergs (Jan 16, 2007)

they grew about 1 cm since i got em, ill post pics shortly!


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## nepenthes (Jan 16, 2007)

IVE ALWAYS WANTED THESE!

and realized maybe in 20 years (doubt it still) I could get them. hmm by that time i can get one of those industrial fridges where you can control the temperature? i don't think they would take up a ton of space...  

Do you keep them at a constant temperature? or is their a temperature variation?

 thanks for the wonderful pictures!


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## arachnocat (Jan 17, 2007)

Those are so cool. They wouldn't last long here in CA though without a fridge. It would be neat to have some fridge pets though.


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## crashergs (Jan 17, 2007)

I live in so.cal and they are doing just fine.


I have them at a constant 64F for over 2 1/2 months and none have parished yet, ill send pictures shortly.


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## Arachnophilist (Jan 17, 2007)

are there not more tropical species of these? ones that can handle higher temps?


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## nepenthes (Jan 18, 2007)

Personaly that isnt really tropical, thast more like Temperate, I would say. In any case, i am also curious could their possibly be more species like this lurking around in other More WARM tropical climates?


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## Arachnophilist (Jan 18, 2007)

nepenthes said:


> Personaly that isnt really tropical, thast more like Temperate, I would say. In any case, i am also curious could their possibly be more species like this lurking around in other More WARM tropical climates?


yeah thats just what I asked.. I guess I didnt word it clearly enough


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## C_Strike (Jan 18, 2007)

Wow, im pretty jelous now...grr hehe
lucky beggars!


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## Kevin_Davies (Jan 19, 2007)

Theres a species thats native to Trinidad that needs warm, humid temperatures in captivity, I know of someone in the UK that has kept them before, I should hopefully be getting a few of them soon as well hopefully.


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## nepenthes (Jan 19, 2007)

Just wait the USDA will say some crap and not let them be imported to the hobby. :wall:


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## bistrobob85 (Jan 21, 2007)

Hey Peripatus people!!!! I LOVE those guys but it would be optimal if they didnt require such low temperatures...

Does anyone know if there are species that live under moderate/tropical micro-climates?!?!

 phil.


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## Tleilaxu (Jan 21, 2007)

More pics please.


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## elyanalyous (Jan 22, 2007)

hey these are really neat! i found a good site for them (for whomever it was that wasn't so google snazzy...i can't remember who it was srry)

http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/velvet_worms.htm


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## colorcham427 (Oct 22, 2011)

thanks for all this cool info. and this site!


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## Hornets inverts (Oct 22, 2011)

very nice mate, they are fairly quick growing, i obtained a small group of 4 i think a few years ago, had bubs which grew pretty quick, lost them all when summer came though  would love to try them again


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