Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone. Besides raising and tempting to breed Giant African Millipedes for the past 20 years, I tryed raising Giant Pill Bugs unsuccessfully for the past 6 years or so.

I have an Asian friend who I hadn't seen for a number of years and came back with some scientific info he wrote down in his logging book. I re-joined him 12 months ago and he showed me the results on what studys he did with scientific instruments on giant millipedes and giant pill bugs. He tested the humidity in the soil, the air and did test on the soil PH's and what the insects ate. The temperatures and tested the water they drank also. He showed me photographs of the habitat's the pill's/pedes live in. He went to Asia and over in parts of West and East Coast areas of Africa & over in Madagascar. He had various test results of the pedes habitats.

He put in his home several types and sizes of tanks. He's been feeding his giant pill bugs the following: rotting oak, pecan wood, moss algae, bracket fungi, and live green moss. 10 gallon tanks, 5-6 inches of decomposed leaf litter (oak and pecan leaves), 5.0 UBV lighting, and an ultrasonic humidifier that puts out a mist every 5 hours for a duration of about one hour. This method he uses is with the Giant Malagasy Emerald Pill Millipede.

I myself been using this method for over a year with regular Giant African Millipedes and had NO pedes died and also am trying this method with some Giant Pills I bought 11 months ago and they haven't died, yet. Many months ago, some guys wrote here at the Millipede Forum that their Giant Pill Bugs had strange fungi markings on the backs of their segments. Since then I been using this new different method my Asian friend showed me, I haven't SEEN any of those markings at all on the backs or underneath the giant pill bugs. It's going on almost ONE year now, and the giant african pedes are mating again and after over many years, I'm starting to see baby pedes coming out of the loose soil! I hope the giant pill bugs become successful breeding. If this does happen, I'll post the results and possibly pictures here for those to see.. robert szymanski

Please keep us updated and if possible post pics.

Dear Robert,

You might have noticed my earlier messages on giant-pill millipedes in this forum.
I have also been able to study them in their natural habitat in Madagascar. I took the original humus layer they eat from with me and copied the temperature almost completely in a climatic chamber. The species I took care of were the big green one and a small brown one.
I kept them in cool conditions and changed part of their humus layer once per week: they were greedy feeders. In the summer they even molted: I was unable to see them for two months and panicked.
So far so good. The last one of five died 19 months after I bought them.
I put a lot of calcareous supplies in the tank but they still got tighter tergites. I had never observed something like that with my other millipedes. Also, to this day I have found NO MALES in this big green Malagasy pill millipede species.
I also kept South African chocolate pill millipedes with black heads from Tansania. They survived about two years and molted each summer, but did not show the thinner tergite symptome.
The last ones from the small brown Malagasy species I copied everything from died in July 2005. I had purchased them in April 2003.
But again, they did not do well. Every two weeks one died, they lost legs, got funghi on their bodies. I even observed tiny snails introduced with a leaf litter eating the millipede legs.

Well, please continue to share information. You can also e-mail me at thomas.wesener@rub.de
I think if I have time I would like to try raising these millipedes again, since I did manage to keep them alive for 19 months....