# Just sharing my pill millipedes, their babies, and friends :)



## Ghoul (Aug 13, 2016)

I'm very happy with how all my spineless buddies in my forest box are doing, but first a little background information on the box.

*The idea:*
Originally it was intended to be a place for feeder woodlice for Benji, my tailless whip scorpion (_Damon diadema_), which were also originally introduced to get rid of mold but Benji loved them a whole lot more than crickets so now there's a woodlouse colony living in his enclosure.





_Benji, my son._
Anyhow, I went into the woods to collect some woodlice and I found a whole lot of other critters so I thought hey, why not try to keep them all together? If there would be any die offs I could release the quickly as the forest is so close. Perfect!

*The setup:*
So I got myself an exo-terra faunarium, you know one of those critter keepers you use when buying or transporting your lil buggers. I went to the nearby woods looking for a rotting tree with lotsa bugs living on/in/under it, collected a buncha dirt, rotting leaves and the rotten wood from that spot to put in the box, put some bark and dry leaves on top and that was it. I spray it with some water once in a while to keep the humidity up and put in a bit of dry leaves from the woods, more rotting wood, moss, random peels from food ect in there once in a while. Mold isn't a problem because they eat it all.






*The critters:*
When putting everything into the box I included the critters already, no cleaning of the wood or leaves at all. That's how a little yellow slug, tiny snails, a worm, a very very small kind of flying cockroach, mites, at least one pseudo-scorpion and a little centipede ended up in there. I tried removing the centipede a few times but he's just too good at hiding (I turned the entire box upside down before, no chance).
My more consciously added critters were woodlice (_Porcellio scaber, Oniscus asellus, Armadillidium vulgare, _and god knows how many other relatives of these), Pill Millipedes (_Glomeris marginata _among a whole bunch of other Glomeris species), a kind of flat backed millipede(unsure), black millipede_ (Tachypodoiulus niger) _and a close brown relative I'm not quite sure of.

*A few months later:*
One flat backed millipede died, apart from that poor little guy I didn't see any other deaths (if so they would probably just get eaten right away). I still see the centipede creeping around at the bottom of the box once in a while so he must be hunting something - he even grew a lot.
The cockroaches, the flat backed millipedes, the woodlice and the pillipedes all had a lot of babies. I decided to do a deep check of the box today and not only do all the ones I remember putting in still live, but there's an invasion of babies in all sizes there. Some of the baby flat backs made little molting chambers I can see from the side of the box. Also, they really love mushrooms and apple, cucumber or potato peels. 

*The photos:*





Atlas, my biggest woodlouse.





Two of my pill bugs.





Pill millipede (left) and a pill bug (right). They look similar, but one is closer related to millipedes and centipedes, while the other is a woodlouse (crustaceans).















Glomeris comes in many colours and sizes!





All of which managed to get all over my arm.





No kidding. They are cute though. 





Tiny baby noodles and roaches sharing a slice of cucumber.





Tiny flat-backed and pill millipedes enjoying a shroom.





When they were newly hatched I had to use my microscope to tell which species it is because they were so tiny! Here's a pill millipede.





Flat-backed millipede





Lil woodlouse looking up :3





Growing slowly

Photos from today!





Noodle





Look at Atlas trying to hide his gigantic butt under there :d





Look at this lil guy





Buds

Reactions: Like 9 | Love 1


----------



## SDCPs (Aug 13, 2016)

Those pill millipedes are fantastic!! Love the group photo in your hand, very well done!!

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


----------



## ErinM31 (Aug 14, 2016)

Awesome! Thank you for sharing!

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Hisserdude (Aug 14, 2016)

Very nice, looks like you have a few different species of pillapeds there!  Very jealous, hope yours do well for you!

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


----------



## mickiem (Aug 16, 2016)

Ghoul said:


> I'm very happy with how all my spineless buddies in my forest box are doing, but first a little background information on the box.
> 
> *The idea:*
> Originally it was intended to be a place for feeder woodlice for Benji, my tailless whip scorpion (_Damon diadema_), which were also originally introduced to get rid of mold but Benji loved them a whole lot more than crickets so now there's a woodlouse colony living in his enclosure.
> ...


What a fun thing to do!  You are the Myria-iso-forest-pod Whisperer.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Ghoul (Aug 19, 2016)

Hahah, thank you all! Here's more recent ones

One of the pseudoscorpions, I was moving soil around and he ended up on my hand :d
They eat mites, and there's so many mites in my box that these guys must be having a good time.











Also two days ago one of my pillipedes moulted and left this perfect piece










I didn't know pill millipedes could shed so perfectly, I can see all the legs on it still. I found the lil guy not far from it 





I saw that he had a little dent, which I'm not sure how he managed to get when moulting on the surface. He didn't want to uncurl completly and it left me quite worried about him since I didn't know how well he could still move his segments with that dent in there. Two days later, aka today, I decided to get a closer look and see if the lil guys alright or if hes got any issues with moving.










Luckily it doesn't seem to bother him and I'm glad he's doing well :'D

On another note, more babies










They grow up so fast _*sniffles

_

Reactions: Like 4


----------



## Jerry (Aug 25, 2016)

Awesome pics been thinking of doing something similar yours looks so good I think I'm going to give it a try

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Aquarimax (Aug 25, 2016)

Ghoul said:


> *The idea:*
> Originally it was intended to be a place for feeder woodlice for Benji, my tailless whip scorpion (_Damon diadema_), which were also originally introduced to get rid of mold but Benji loved them a whole lot more than crickets so now there's a woodlouse colony living in his enclosure.


I'm curious as to how Benji reacted to the woodlice. Do you mean "he loved to eat them" or "he loved the hang around with them"? From your post, I understand that he did not eat them, I just want to confirm that I understood correctly.


----------



## Ghoul (Aug 27, 2016)

Aquarimax said:


> I'm curious as to how Benji reacted to the woodlice. Do you mean "he loved to eat them" or "he loved the hang around with them"? From your post, I understand that he did not eat them, I just want to confirm that I understood correctly.


He found them to be rather delicious ;p


----------



## Aquarimax (Aug 27, 2016)

Ghoul said:


> He found them to be rather delicious ;p


Ah, I see! Good to know. I keep micro isopods with my D. diadema, as well as springtails, as vivarium janitors, and have thought of putting larger ones in with them, but it sounds like I should still with the small ones, unless I am intentionally offering them as a snack. : )

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## UltimateDracoMeteor (Aug 27, 2016)

I didn't know pill millipedes could survive in captivity. That's pretty sweet, though!

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Ghoul (Aug 27, 2016)

Aquarimax said:


> Ah, I see! Good to know. I keep micro isopods with my D. diadema, as well as springtails, as vivarium janitors, and have thought of putting larger ones in with them, but it sounds like I should still with the small ones, unless I am intentionally offering them as a snack. : )


Yeah, I intended mine to be just janitors but Benji ended up catching so many of them. He rarely ate crickets so I was happy when I saw him catch at least one isopod a day.  



UltimateDracoMeteor said:


> I didn't know pill millipedes could survive in captivity. That's pretty sweet, though!


I know that the exotic ones don't survive long in captivity, let alone breed. I think I have the advantage of living near their natural habitat, I can just go collect wood, leaves, ect right from where they live. For exotic species people collect woods and stuff from their area and bake it ect to get rid of insects and other things that could possibly harm their pill millipedes. But it could be that they actually need something in there, maybe wood from specific exotic trees, maybe they need other critters that help them in some way or form, maybe something about specific bacteria, I don't know. I just have to collect everything near where I find them, doesn't matter if there's other critters in there (exception is carnivorous ones such as centipedes). So far they all have been doing well together and I'm thinking about getting a proper tank for them to live in.


----------



## Elytra and Antenna (Aug 27, 2016)

For some reason all the pictures make it difficult to read the posts, it keeps jumping around as it loads and reloads, even writing this post it keeps jumping. I have a good group of pustulata spotted pill milliped captive hatched immatures that are nearly a year old. I wish I could get some of the bigger ones like you have.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Ghoul (Aug 27, 2016)

Elytra and Antenna said:


> For some reason all the pictures make it difficult to read the posts, it keeps jumping around as it loads and reloads, even writing this post it keeps jumping. I have a good group of pustulata spotted pill milliped captive hatched immatures that are nearly a year old. I wish I could get some of the bigger ones like you have.


Yeah you'll have to wait for everything to load,  I forgot people have slower internet too, I'm sorry 
I have at least 3 _Glomeris pustulata _in my group, they're so pretty aren't they? I think Glomeris may be a good species to keep in comparison to all those exotic millipedes that often don't survive for long.


----------

