Wednesday, June 15, 2016

My New Motyxia sp!

That's right, I have bought three Bioluminescent millipedes from Bugsincyberspace, and I will hopefully be getting even more from Peter soon! These guys are really cool, and they actually glow in the dark! I have yet to see this feature, seeing as they just arrived, but tonight I will try to get some pictures of them glowing if possible. These are most likely Motyxia tiemanni, however that has yet to be confirmed.

Now millipedes in the order Polydesmida are notorious for their lack of hardiness in captivity, and most species can be hard to keep alive, let alone breed. However, this species surprisingly seems to make a somewhat hardy captive, and according to this paper, breeding them may be an easy accomplishment. Hopefully that is true, as I and many other millipede hobbyists would just love to breed these successfully in captivity.

I am keeping mine in a medium sized plastic container filled with a substrate mix of crushed dead leaves, rotten cottonwood, fermented Traeger sawdust, (1) (2), and some rotten wood from an unknown tree species that I collected a few years ago. There is also a layer of dead leaves on top of half of the substrate, for the millipedes to hide under. The main food source will be the substrate, though I will feed them dog food, fruits and veggies on occasion.

Here are some pictures of the substrate components:

Dead leaves
Rotten cottonwood
Rotten wood from unknown tree sp.
Fermented Traeger sawdust
The cage
The millipedes themselves are a beautiful rusty red color, though some of them are just white. I have two females and one male, the male has found a depression in the soil and has curled up, which is hopefully a sign of him resting rather than a sign of him dying...

Anyway, here are some pictures of the millipedes!




















Here's a video of them as well:


Hopefully they will do well in my care, I would love it if they bred for me as well! I will definitely keep you guys updated on these, and there may be another post about them tonight if my camera can catch them glowing!

Anyway, that's gonna be it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all later! :)

4 comments:

  1. Awesome Hisserdude! I may see if Peter has any extras that I can buy off of him, I would also absolutely love to have this amazing species!

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    1. Thanks! :) He definitely does not have any to spare right now, however he plans on making another trip to where he found them soon, so hopefully he'll have them available within a few weeks!

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    2. Ok, was hoping he'd have some, but that's unfortunate. Still plan on getting some pretty cool stuff soon with my $140 I got for graduating yesterday and from my birthday. I'm considering getting Orin's Complete Guide to Breeding Beetles book, Keeping The Praying Mantis book, and maybe a couple more P.aegyptiaca and a flameleg millipede. But I'm also thinking about possibly asking Kyle or Orin if they have a M.rhinoceros baby to spare since they both had hatches fairly recently.

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    3. Well hopefully he'll have some available soon! :) Yes you should definitely get some of Orin's books, the Ultimate guide to breeding beetles is one of my favorites. Can't wait until he publishes the roach book!
      You could save up a bit more and try to get a sexed pair of M.rhinoceros, you are only about $100 off really. :)

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