- Joined
- Jul 1, 2004
- Messages
- 852
Hi all,
This is a quick post to illuminate something my friend witnessed not so long ago. I advised him to post his observations here but sadly he doesn't have a lot of time on his hands.
Anyway I got an odd text from him the other night claiming he had just watched his male Giant African Black millipede attempt a rape on a smaller African bronze (the AGB is around 10" and chunky and the bronze around 5" and slimmer).
I thought I'd better post this up as I've never heard of the AGB's being aggressive in mating before and maybe folks should think twice about keeping lone males in with other fairly large species of millipede.
Anyway Sam phoned me on Monday night and bescribed what he saw so I'll try and sum it up - First he noticed the male AGB approach the bronze which instantly curled up. He then said the AGB clumbered over the bronze and successfully prized it apart so it was straight out. The AGB then began squeezing its legs (I'd seen it do this to his female AGB but it died some months ago). Somehow or other the bronze managed to wriggle free anddarted off under a clump of moss, this was seconds before my friend had decided to stick a hand in and attempt a rescue. Hoping that that bronze wasn't injured he lifted the clump of moss to find his pair of bronze so he was unsure as to which one was the subject of his AGB's attempted rape. He noticed the male bronze had lost an anttenae which he hadn't noticed before.
Is it the season? :? Talking to my friend about it he seemed rather put out and said to me "what I saw weren't pretty". I can imagine
Maybe it's notthebest idea to keep male AGB's on their own though I've never heard of them being so aggresive before, maybe my friend just got an "unhinged" one?
This is a quick post to illuminate something my friend witnessed not so long ago. I advised him to post his observations here but sadly he doesn't have a lot of time on his hands.
Anyway I got an odd text from him the other night claiming he had just watched his male Giant African Black millipede attempt a rape on a smaller African bronze (the AGB is around 10" and chunky and the bronze around 5" and slimmer).
I thought I'd better post this up as I've never heard of the AGB's being aggressive in mating before and maybe folks should think twice about keeping lone males in with other fairly large species of millipede.
Anyway Sam phoned me on Monday night and bescribed what he saw so I'll try and sum it up - First he noticed the male AGB approach the bronze which instantly curled up. He then said the AGB clumbered over the bronze and successfully prized it apart so it was straight out. The AGB then began squeezing its legs (I'd seen it do this to his female AGB but it died some months ago). Somehow or other the bronze managed to wriggle free anddarted off under a clump of moss, this was seconds before my friend had decided to stick a hand in and attempt a rescue. Hoping that that bronze wasn't injured he lifted the clump of moss to find his pair of bronze so he was unsure as to which one was the subject of his AGB's attempted rape. He noticed the male bronze had lost an anttenae which he hadn't noticed before.
Is it the season? :? Talking to my friend about it he seemed rather put out and said to me "what I saw weren't pretty". I can imagine
Maybe it's notthebest idea to keep male AGB's on their own though I've never heard of them being so aggresive before, maybe my friend just got an "unhinged" one?