Apheloria virginiensis are out in force right now!

I saw half a dozen in ten minutes on my last hike in North Raleigh this week, plus a few more along the road driving out that were big enough to spot from the car. Nice looking creatures, these. Are they fun in captivity? Sadly I have a bug-phobic partner and can not take them home with me, but should anyone else want any, they are out in force anywhere there's shady damp woodland with a good leaf carpet.

Oh, and sorry for the lousy photo; I was balancing a fast marching 'pede on one hand while aiming my phone camera with the other. Does this count as a "Selfiepede"? ROFL

And here, have another. I don't recall if this is the same one or not. Probably not as I stopped and played with several. These guys just kept on showing up. It was a really fun hike! I regret not being able to take any home, but pictures are the next best thing. Next free afternoon I get, I'm definitely going to go visit them again.

Gorgeous pedes! My understanding is that polydesmids don't do real well in captivity, but I haven't kept any myself.

Cavedweller said:

Gorgeous pedes! My understanding is that polydesmids don't do real well in captivity, but I haven't kept any myself.

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Aww. I enjoy visiting with them, but I would not want to take any away from the wild if they would not do well in captivity. Any collectors have a good track record for keeping them alive and reproducing them?

This is a fun habitat to visit, so if you're a 'pede fan coming through Raleigh, HMU and check this out. It is really nifty to see so many of them marching all over the place and get to take pictures.

I kept mine when I was really young in a terrible container. It was a mayonnaise jar and had bark chips and a stick in it. I misted it every few days. It lived for at least 6 months before I...uh....forgot about it. I guess if it can live that long in deplorable conditions I guess they aren't that hard. Over here in Dallas, near Charlotte, they are everywhere too.

I've tried keeping a small group of the twice. Both times died in under a week. First time was keeping them on straight coco fiber, with some bark to hide under. Second time was mix of coco, aspen shavings and leaf litter.

The conditions I see them under involve a lot of rotting logs, mushrooms, shelf fungus, dirt and wet leaves. Over the years I've also seen millipedes of multiple species eating carcasses (animal or insect), so like some other folks on this board I'll hazard the guess that they may be less exclusively herbivorous than folks may have been thinking. Makes sense; quite a few supposedly herbivorous species such as deer are heavy opportunistic scavengers of animal protein, and there's been some good recent papers on that. It makes evolutionary sense not to turn down free protein if it's environmentally abundant, and I suspect it is in the decaying substrate layer.

My next guess is that they need both high humidity conditions and good air circulation, so that some types of fungi (eg, mushrooms) can grow but the more inimical mold species get less of a toehold. That is a tall order in captivity, though it's do-able. It's what I'd try from observing this habitat.

Success might be had by taking the animals along with a good chunk of their actual substrate and working with that. I wish I could, but with a bug-phobic partner I'm limited to living vicariously through other collectors and visiting my many-legged buddies on local hikes.

I think that often the attempt to keep these ends in failure because there is an inclination to house them like tarantulas as if there is a catch all formula to keeping inverts. Polydesmids, in general, eat A LOT of decomposing leaves and appreciate rotting wood. I'm glad you mentioned animal protein, Tanith. The sole function of these millipedes is to break down organic matter. They will ignore what's given them in captivity until it reaches a state that they find "palatable". I tried feeding a mushroom out of curiosity and my colony ate the leaf litter around it until it had turned into a pile of slurry. They will, however, readily take dried out husks of dead insects. Never tried carcasses of vertebrates lol but I can understand that being a potential food source. The other detriment to keeping these is keeping them in a sopping mess or letting them dry out too much, as well as too much heat/sun exposure. Decomposing material is rarely wet but merely moist. The areas where I've collected polydesmids, regardless of temperate, subtropical zone, etc. are dappled with sunlight, at best.