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! :)