- Joined
- Sep 6, 2004
- Messages
- 77
Ok...
I just bought my girlfriend a pair of Tanzanian Red-legged Millipedes. While they were in my possession they mated. Before mating with the female, the male bent his head around towards his body and pushed his gonopods, which had just appeared and "inflated" seconds before, against his mouth. From what I have been able to find and read, it seems like he must have been transferring a spermatophore from his primary sexual organs to his gonopods. A day later the millipedes were belly to belly with the males gonopods erect and doing... something... to the female.
Now it really gets exciting... and very very strange!
I gave the milli's to my girlfriend Linda. She just called to report and describe in detail some unusual behavior being performed by the female. The female curled herself around into a question mark in a shallow depression in the soil. She then curled her tail-end around and deposited a poop into her legs. She used her legs like a conveyer belt and transferred the poop to just below her face, where she began to manipulate it... as Linda put it "like someone working on a pinch pot". After she did this for a while, she conveyed the now half destroyed poop back towards her rear. When it neared her tail she curled around and deposited a fresh poop anteriorally to the old, already manipulated poop. Now, here comes the kicker... she put the poop that she has already transferred up, manipulated, and transferred back down BACK INSIDE HER gut!!! Apparently this has been going on for a while now (my info is all coming over the phone) and many poops have been transfered, manipulated, re-inserted, and finally deposited onto the ground by the female.
I interpret the whole situation as follows...
- the female poops, transfers the poop to where she lays eggs from, and inserts a few eggs into it.
- the poop is rather ruffled and she wants to make it firm around her eggs again so she transfers it back to whence it came and used her gut muscles to reform it.
- of course before she does this she deposits a fresh poop so that she can lay another set of eggs!
- somehow she keeps track of what poop has eggs, what doesn't, what needs to be reformed, and what order she needs to keep all of these in along her conveyer belt legs.
WELL... what do you all think of all this!?! I think this is about the oddest set of behaviors I have ever heard about in the animal world... I am really blown away :?
-trygon
I just bought my girlfriend a pair of Tanzanian Red-legged Millipedes. While they were in my possession they mated. Before mating with the female, the male bent his head around towards his body and pushed his gonopods, which had just appeared and "inflated" seconds before, against his mouth. From what I have been able to find and read, it seems like he must have been transferring a spermatophore from his primary sexual organs to his gonopods. A day later the millipedes were belly to belly with the males gonopods erect and doing... something... to the female.
Now it really gets exciting... and very very strange!
I gave the milli's to my girlfriend Linda. She just called to report and describe in detail some unusual behavior being performed by the female. The female curled herself around into a question mark in a shallow depression in the soil. She then curled her tail-end around and deposited a poop into her legs. She used her legs like a conveyer belt and transferred the poop to just below her face, where she began to manipulate it... as Linda put it "like someone working on a pinch pot". After she did this for a while, she conveyed the now half destroyed poop back towards her rear. When it neared her tail she curled around and deposited a fresh poop anteriorally to the old, already manipulated poop. Now, here comes the kicker... she put the poop that she has already transferred up, manipulated, and transferred back down BACK INSIDE HER gut!!! Apparently this has been going on for a while now (my info is all coming over the phone) and many poops have been transfered, manipulated, re-inserted, and finally deposited onto the ground by the female.
I interpret the whole situation as follows...
- the female poops, transfers the poop to where she lays eggs from, and inserts a few eggs into it.
- the poop is rather ruffled and she wants to make it firm around her eggs again so she transfers it back to whence it came and used her gut muscles to reform it.
- of course before she does this she deposits a fresh poop so that she can lay another set of eggs!
- somehow she keeps track of what poop has eggs, what doesn't, what needs to be reformed, and what order she needs to keep all of these in along her conveyer belt legs.
WELL... what do you all think of all this!?! I think this is about the oddest set of behaviors I have ever heard about in the animal world... I am really blown away :?
-trygon