7/19/2022: Quick millipede news before a Tennessee report!
The Tennessee blitz went splendidly and I’ll be putting a write-up for that out soon, but there is some equally exciting news afoot!
A short while ago Alan Jeon told me he had gotten offspring from his Pachydesmus sp., a flat millipede success story not often reported if at all. Upon returning from Tennessee and doing a casual enclosure check last night, I too found a flood of Pachydesmus sp. babies! Having a very large, hardy flat millipede in culture would be an excellent way to ignite the powder keg that is a nearly universal love for flat millipedes. Perhaps our successes will pave the way for future discoveries.
Most important of all: photographic proof! Some millipede success stories are short-lived, as images of “babies” end up being hitchhikers on leaf litter or wood. The most notorious among these are Julidae and Oxidus gracilis. However, babies of large species tend to have extremely small leg counts, whereas millipedes with smaller adult sizes will have far more legs when of parallel size to these.
Babies are an important first step, but the true filter will be closing the loop on their life cycle in captivity. It’s important not to get -too- excited as catastrophic failure could be imminent. For now, I will smile at the short-term results, and fret the logistics of replicating them in perpetuity.
-Kyle