Giant African millipedes

[Tiannamamma90]

About 3 months ago I bought a pair, and the day after I got them they were mating I believe, I saw the sperm ball and all, gross. Then I only saw one of them out daily, up until a few days ago. Now they both are out, hoping the female was with her eggs during that time of MIA. I thought I saw some baby dubias in the tank, but after closer inspection they were just the giant canyon isos, Haha. Thank goodness. So i guess we'll see if i have some babies in a week or so i hope!!

 

[MasterOogway]

Are you positive they are true A. gigas? These are often mislabeled and it's uncommon for them to breed in captivity. At any rate, good luck with your potential babies!

 

[Tiannamamma90]

Are you positive they are true A. gigas? These are often mislabeled and it's uncommon for them to breed in captivity. At any rate, good luck with your potential babies!

Well, they are pretty huge, and a friend of mine sold them to me. But I didn't know they don't breed in captivity. Never heard that. Regardless I seen it, and hopefully they will have babies soon.

 

[MasterOogway]

If you have any pictures feel free to post; most commonly they end up being Mardonius parilis, but maybe you lucked out and got some true gigas. Mardonius have a diagnostic 'satiny ridge' down the midline or so of each segment and their eggs are significantly smaller; 1-2mm instead of 3-4mm like true gigas (supposedly, I've never seen gigas eggs in real life, but thousands of Mardonius eggs).

 

[Tiannamamma90]

If you have any pictures feel free to post; most commonly they end up being Mardonius parilis, but may you lucked out and got some true gigas. Mardonius have a diagnostic 'satiny ridge' down the midline or so of each segment and their eggs are significantly smaller; 1-2mm instead of 3-4mm like true gigas (supposedly, I've never seen gigas eggs in real life, but thousands of Mardonius eggs).

Here's one.

 

[mantisfan101]

Looks more like a mardonius to me but I could be wrong. Awesome pede nonetheless, good luck with the breeding attempts!

 

[Arthroverts]

I'm thinking that looks like Mardonius parilis acuticonis as well. A. gigas have a sort of brown-black color without those satiny ridges, as @MasterOogway said above.
I wouldn't say so much that it is uncommon for gigas to breed, but rather they are more difficult to get to drop eggs. You have to have a proper substrate and a thick layer of leaf litter for a female to drop them, unlike some spirobolids who will lay wherever and whenever.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[MillipedeTrain]

About 3 months ago I bought a pair, and the day after I got them they were mating I believe, I saw the sperm ball and all, gross. Then I only saw one of them out daily, up until a few days ago. Now they both are out, hoping the female was with her eggs during that time of MIA. I thought I saw some baby dubias in the tank, but after closer inspection they were just the giant canyon isos, Haha. Thank goodness. So i guess we'll see if i have some babies in a week or so i hope!!

Hey there.
If you are hoping to successfully breed millipedes of any species I would NEVER under any circumstances keep ANY species of isopod with millipedes. EVEN if you don’t want to breed I still wouldn’t ever keep isopods with giant millipedes. Isopods EAT millipede eggs and can even attack and KILL adult giant millipedes and especially moulting millipedes! There are MANY forum posts of people who had their millipedes killed and some had almost their entire colony wiped out by the isopods killing their millipedes for absolutely no reason when there was tons of food available! The millipedes were not sick or injured in any way for an attack to be triggered upon them either! They had previously been perfectly healthy with all their limbs. Isopod are savage. The people who wrote the forum posts even witnessed the isopods attacking and trying to kill their live millipede and saw several other isopod already eating one they already killed. Isopods are no good to keep with millipedes. Many people do not know about this but end up learning the hard way. Isopods are great cleaners for reptiles or some amphibians but are not good to be kept with millipedes under any circumstances. Others are welcome to disagree with me of course, but if you have seen what I’ve seen and know how savage isopods are to millipedes you would never allow an isopod colony in along with your ‘pedes. I can never caution this enough.

Isopods will 100% eat millipede eggs. The only reason you would ever have any surviving millipedes hatch is if the isopod didn’t find the buried eggs... but they will GLADY attack and kill and eat fresh baby ‘pedlings especially moulting millipedes if they find them. Just thought I would get this out there.

I also added a few supporting pics of comments of other people who also had bad experiences with isopods and recommend not to keep them together.

I apologize if I sounded harsh in any way it’s not meant to be I just really care about millipedes and I am only putting this info out there because I want to help SAVE millipede lives! If my one post here can help save the lives of adorable pedlings and adult moulting and non moulting millipedes alike then I’ve done my job!

 

[Tiannamamma90]

That's crazy, I had no idea. I'l fix that for sure, thank you!!!

 

[Arthroverts]

I agree with what @MillipedeTrain said, but I would clarify that there are those who have kept isopods and millipedes together successfully. However, they were all in enclosures where the millipedes were reproducing fast enough that even though some fell prey to the isopods, there were literally hundreds of millipedes left over.
That said, I would not encourage keeping isopods and millipedes together if you hope to breed/rear the millipedes, for the reasons stated above.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[MillipedeTrain]

That's crazy, I had no idea. I'l fix that for sure, thank you!!!

No problem hun. My goal here is to help and you seemed like you wanted or were hoping for them to breed. But yeah, sadly isopods aren’t very friendly to millipedes I’m afraid.

 

[MillipedeTrain]

I agree with what @MillipedeTrain said, but I would clarify that there are those who have kept isopods and millipedes together successfully. However, they were all in enclosures where the millipedes were reproducing fast enough that even though some fell prey to the isopods, there were literally hundreds of millipedes left over.
That said, I would not encourage keeping isopods and millipedes together if you hope to breed/rear the millipedes, for the reasons stated above.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

Hey, thanks for the award. Yeah I guess that makes sense the only way isopods would be okay mixing together with millipedes is if there was just sooooo many millipedes that the isopods couldn’t keep up with them to eat them all. That would be too sad for me personally. I love my millipedes so much. If mine ever breed to ridiculous numbers (they’ve successfully laid eggs now) then I would just separate the males until their numbers died down naturally from old age. (I’m really good at sexing them now, even with small millipedes.)

Though for people with small colonies or maybe just a couple millipedes as pets or if they want to breed I absolutely recommend they do not keep them with isopods.


Springtails are a MUCH safer cleanup crew for millipedes and I can’t recommend them enough especially since they even eat the mold that starts to grow in the millipede’s enclosures. They don’t hurt eggs either.

 

[BepopCola]

Isopods will 100% eat millipede eggs.

I haven't kept isopods with millipedes, but I keep isopods with snails and they do 100% eat snail eggs. So I can see it making sense that they'd also eat other eggs, and millipede eggs are smaller and softer and sometimes covered in poop.