Crowd sourcing for a millipede book.

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
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Jul 11, 2016
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2,462
Hello everyone!
I am working on making a crowd sourced book on millipede care and breeding. But I need your help, so if you have experience in millipedes, please contribute! I am seeking species profiles on every species of millipede kept in captivity (no matter how obscure), substrate mix recipes, best caging and heating/cooling methods, best ways to ship millipedes, basic care and maintenance, breeding, everything that would benefit other keepers. Please post your articles/chapters in this thread, or PM them to me. Pictures are welcome and necessary. This is competitive, so posting does not necessarily mean I will put your article in the book. For those of you who have experience but don't want to write something, but still want to help, please review articles to make sure there up-to-date and accurate (I don't know everything). If you disagree with an article, please write a post saying whats wrong with it and give suggestions. This is not a thread to argue over how to do this or that, but to help other keepers. I appreciate all help and posts, in the book or not. I am open to suggestions for the book title. Again, thank you.
Thanks
 

RTTB

Arachnoprince
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Dec 4, 2016
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1,771
Orin McMonigle's book on millipedes is outstanding but I'm sure another book on the subject would be welcomed.
 

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
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Jul 11, 2016
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The difference between this book and Orin's is that it will draw on the collective experience of dozens of people, and that it will hopefully have a lot more information.
Thanks
 

arizonablue

Arachnosquire
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Jul 26, 2016
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96
Who is your publisher? How are authors/photographers being credited? Are you providing any sort of compensation (percentage of revenue, copies of the book, etc) to contributors?
 

Arthroverts

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I will self publish hard copies through lulu.com or something similar, photographers will be credited next to their pictures and the authors will have their names before or after their article with a short description of themselves and their experience and all the names of the contributors will be in a list at the front or back of the book, and contributors will get a copy of the book.
Thanks
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2016
Messages
1,652
Hello everyone!
I am working on making a crowd sourced book on millipede care and breeding. But I need your help, so if you have experience in millipedes, please contribute! I am seeking species profiles on every species of millipede kept in captivity (no matter how obscure), substrate mix recipes, best caging and heating/cooling methods, best ways to ship millipedes, basic care and maintenance, breeding, everything that would benefit other keepers. Please post your articles/chapters in this thread, or PM them to me. Pictures are welcome and necessary. This is competitive, so posting does not necessarily mean I will put your article in the book. For those of you who have experience but don't want to write something, but still want to help, please review articles to make sure there up-to-date and accurate (I don't know everything). If you disagree with an article, please write a post saying whats wrong with it and give suggestions. This is not a thread to argue over how to do this or that, but to help other keepers. I appreciate all help and posts, in the book or not. I am open to suggestions for the book title. Again, thank you.
Thanks
Are there species in which you specialize? How long have you been keeping millipedes and which species do you keep? Have you ever written a book or will this be your first? More books can't be a bad thing, Best of luck.
 

Arthroverts

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Jul 11, 2016
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Contributors will get a free online copy that you can print out yourself if I don't make enough money to give everyone a hard copy. I keep Anadenobolus monilicornis, Brachycybe lecontii, Chicobolus spinigerus, Narceus gordanus and Trigoniulus corralinus. I have kept millipedes for about two and a half months, which is why I am crowdsourcing for this book, as I do not have enough experience to write a book myself. I will tie everything together in the book and probably write the introduction. I have worked on several other books but have not published anything yet. Just remember, I can't make this book without your help, even something as simple as ways to collect millipedes safely is needed.
Thanks
 

Arthroverts

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I know Marika keeps lots of millipedes, and Hisserdude has a cool recipe for making rotting wood that would be helpful for those of us keeping millipedes that eat rotting wood, Aquarimax also keeps millipedes. I know theres a lot more of you out there. Anybody willing to help out?
Thanks
 

Mpaul213

Arachnopeon
Joined
May 23, 2017
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38
bump! I am surprised more people have not contributed to this! Lets try this again!
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
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Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
Lay out your chapters and outline the discussions that you want to have and the questions you wan't to answer. Then bring the questions and discussions to the board to digest in piece meal. It is a bit vague to suggest that we crowd source a book without outlining the discussion.

If I were to set out to achieve a goal like this I would purchase a copy of every book still in print on the subject (there aren't many) and make an outline of the gaps in knowledge, the things that you disagree with, the species that are missing or redefined, the inadequacies of the anatomical diagrams and then bring them to us to talk about. That is just the tip of the iceberg because there are books and journals to deal with too. I would also subscribe to a few scientific journals (or an online scientific society) and get a list of back issues to research and pay for a university library card to attain access to archived journals from disbanded scientific societies and photo copy the ones that can't leave the library and check out the stuff you can (some universities allow this, I've done it at University of Utah in the 1990's when I was working on a field research project for high school). If you want to write a book better than McMonigle you are going to have to go further than he has and work harder.

I just got two of McMonigle's books and I am about halfway through the first one on Centipede husbandry. Although the book has been hailed as the best on the subject it is one of only a few and there is room for improvement. I love the book, don't get me wrong. So far it lacks detailed hand drawn anatomical diagrams that are clearly labeled. If you have ever read the book "Scorpions of Medical Importance" by Hugh L. Keegan then you would understand what I expected when I opened Orin's book on centipedes. But visa versa, Orin's book has lots of full color photographs and first hand stories that make it a much more pleasant read. If you combined the best qualities of Orin's book with that of Keegan's it would be an improvement.

I would also like to see comparative photograph charts of actual specimens for differentiation between the anatomy of genus, species and subspecies, as well as sexual dimorphism. The problem then becomes size and cost of the book and who would buy it. Something that expansive would probably be better formatted as a web data base. Aside from entomologists, and the occasional enthusiast that wanted to ID a unique specimen collected from someplace like Myanmar or Laos, there wouldn't be much of a demand for something like that.
 

ErinM31

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1,217
Lay out your chapters and outline the discussions that you want to have and the questions you wan't to answer. Then bring the questions and discussions to the board to digest in piece meal. It is a bit vague to suggest that we crowd source a book without outlining the discussion.

If I were to set out to achieve a goal like this I would purchase a copy of every book still in print on the subject (there aren't many) and make an outline of the gaps in knowledge, the things that you disagree with, the species that are missing or redefined, the inadequacies of the anatomical diagrams and then bring them to us to talk about. That is just the tip of the iceberg because there are books and journals to deal with too. I would also subscribe to a few scientific journals (or an online scientific society) and get a list of back issues to research and pay for a university library card to attain access to archived journals from disbanded scientific societies and photo copy the ones that can't leave the library and check out the stuff you can (some universities allow this, I've done it at University of Utah in the 1990's when I was working on a field research project for high school). If you want to write a book better than McMonigle you are going to have to go further than he has and work harder.

I just got two of McMonigle's books and I am about halfway through the first one on Centipede husbandry. Although the book has been hailed as the best on the subject it is one of only a few and there is room for improvement. I love the book, don't get me wrong. So far it lacks detailed hand drawn anatomical diagrams that are clearly labeled. If you have ever read the book "Scorpions of Medical Importance" by Hugh L. Keegan then you would understand what I expected when I opened Orin's book on centipedes. But visa versa, Orin's book has lots of full color photographs and first hand stories that make it a much more pleasant read. If you combined the best qualities of Orin's book with that of Keegan's it would be an improvement.

I would also like to see comparative photograph charts of actual specimens for differentiation between the anatomy of genus, species and subspecies, as well as sexual dimorphism. The problem then becomes size and cost of the book and who would buy it. Something that expansive would probably be better formatted as a web data base. Aside from entomologists, and the occasional enthusiast that wanted to ID a unique specimen collected from someplace like Myanmar or Laos, there wouldn't be much of a demand for something like that.
Yep, this is the way I've been going about preparing to write my book on millipedes -- and good suggestions! :) I've also reviewed all the scientific literature on North American millipedes (which I am limiting the scope of my book to) and have been keeping dozens of species for more than a year now to get firsthand experience (and will certainly have more before writing the book). In additional to illustrations (I trained in art before returning to school to get my PhD in biology and go into research), my husband is a professional photographer and will be taking photos for the book. :D
 

Elytra and Antenna

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Good luck with your efforts! Many species take two to seven years to run through a single life cycle so it may be difficult to vet husbandry data from outside sources without the experience of running a life cycle or two of different species. I know for me I spend an unreal amount of time (years and hundreds of hours) and still realize my finished product may never be nearly what I'd hope for. I'm not sure if I should mention the chances of making money from a millipede book are probably close to zero (I could be doing it wrong though). You have to do it for the love of the animals and for sharing that excitement.
 

DubiaW

Arachnobaron
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
471
Good luck with your efforts! Many species take two to seven years to run through a single life cycle so it may be difficult to vet husbandry data from outside sources without the experience of running a life cycle or two of different species. I know for me I spend an unreal amount of time (years and hundreds of hours) and still realize my finished product may never be nearly what I'd hope for. I'm not sure if I should mention the chances of making money from a millipede book are probably close to zero (I could be doing it wrong though). You have to do it for the love of the animals and for sharing that excitement.
Unfortunately there is very little mainstream literature on myriapods for that very reason. Not enough money in it. There is quite a bit of scientific literature out there. Reading these journals are often painstaking.
 

ErinM31

Arachnogoddess
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Feb 25, 2016
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1,217
Good luck with your efforts! Many species take two to seven years to run through a single life cycle so it may be difficult to vet husbandry data from outside sources without the experience of running a life cycle or two of different species. I know for me I spend an unreal amount of time (years and hundreds of hours) and still realize my finished product may never be nearly what I'd hope for. I'm not sure if I should mention the chances of making money from a millipede book are probably close to zero (I could be doing it wrong though). You have to do it for the love of the animals and for sharing that excitement.
Thank you! :happy: I decided that I wanted to put together a book on North American millipedes after I found some beautiful Eurymerodesmus melacis and after much searching, found almost no information to help an interested layperson identify millipedes. I wish for this book to be a general guide to identification (my goal would be to help someone determine that they had found a Euryurid, not direct them to microscopic dissection to determine the exact species, for example) and also to provide as much husbandry information as possible. Fortunately, the husbandry of most long-lived millipedes has already been well characterized by you! ;) I am hoping that I can add to our knowledge of keeping Polydesmida (work in progress!) and some of the smaller and unusual millipedes. :D

Oh, and no worries about the money -- this is a labor of love and I'd be surprised if it even paid for itself. I wish to contribute to knowledge and appreciation of this wonderful animals. :happy:
 

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
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2,462
I did a fantastic job ghosting all y'all on this project, didn't I ;)?

Anyways, when I first came up with this idea and made that post, you can guess I was relatively naïve, especially being relatively new to the hobby. Regardless, I now have the network of people I need (at least enough to start...), plus a fair bit more knowledge, to actually make something on that scale...but not in book form. Rather, in partnership with @MillipedeTrain and in collaboration with the Global Millipede Group, I am working on a millipede husbandry database known as The MED: The Millipede Enthusiast Database. It is easy to mark its incompleteness, and hopefully someday soon it will be moved to a more permanent site, but in the meantime it resides here.

Thanks,

Arthroverts
 

Tidbit

Arachnosquire
Joined
Apr 1, 2020
Messages
55
Hello everyone!
I am working on making a crowd sourced book on millipede care and breeding. But I need your help, so if you have experience in millipedes, please contribute! I am seeking species profiles on every species of millipede kept in captivity (no matter how obscure), substrate mix recipes, best caging and heating/cooling methods, best ways to ship millipedes, basic care and maintenance, breeding, everything that would benefit other keepers. Please post your articles/chapters in this thread, or PM them to me. Pictures are welcome and necessary. This is competitive, so posting does not necessarily mean I will put your article in the book. For those of you who have experience but don't want to write something, but still want to help, please review articles to make sure there up-to-date and accurate (I don't know everything). If you disagree with an article, please write a post saying whats wrong with it and give suggestions. This is not a thread to argue over how to do this or that, but to help other keepers. I appreciate all help and posts, in the book or not. I am open to suggestions for the book title. Again, thank you.
Thanks
I’m sorta a beginner hobbyist of millipedes. I may not be able to offer a lot of info, but I think it would improve your project if you addressed some of the unanswered questions I had when starting. They may have been answered somewhere, but I just didn’t find it... anyways,
1) how much water is too much? Misting wise...
2) do millipedes NEED a colony, or other millipedes of varied species to do well or can they be strictly solitary?
3) warning signs of health problems. It may just be me, but I get really worried when my millipedes do weird things like drink a lot of water in one sitting or curl up on top of the soil or stay under the soil for a long-long time (I’m extra paranoid about this because my first died after appearing to hunker down for shedding)
4) substrate level. How much slack are you able to get away with in how much they have (strictly 2-4in deep or a little more/less?)
5) do millipedes require enrichment or will the bare minimum amount of cover and decor suffice?
6) what kinds of minerals/food types do millipedes require other than dead leaves and substrate. I’ve heard of people providing everything from eggshells, vegetable scraps, to dog food.

I recognize that some of these questions may be unanswerable with the knowledge we currently have regarding millipedes, but maybe personal experience could answer some of these. Also, I do know or don’t require the answers to the questions, I just wish I could’ve known or found the answers to them easier or had the answers as I was researching millipedes.
I hope I helped out, thanks guys,
Tidbit
 

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
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@Tidbit, I don't know if you saw the link in my most recent post, but this website, on the page Basic Millipede Care, should answer at least some of those questions.

An FAQ was already being considered, and I can work most of your questions into what has already been written.

Thanks,

Arthroverts
 

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
2,462
I should also note that we are looking for information, captivity/breeding reports, and pictures of millipedes, especially of the less-common species.

Thanks,

Arthroverts
 
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