What do millipedes eat? A detailed explanation of millipedes' feeding habits
Millipedes, also known as thousand-leggers, thousand-footed worms, and scale-stick worms, prefer damp and shady places and live in the surface layer of lawns, under clods of earth, under paving blocks, or in soil crevices. They hide by day and are active at night. When threatened or touched, they curl their bodies into a ring shape in a “state of feigned death” and resume activity after some time. Let us take a look below at what millipedes eat!
What do millipedes eat?
Millipedes are among the first processors in the decomposition of matter in ecosystems. They live on and feed on decaying plant matter, though some also harm plants, and a few are predatory or feed on carrion. They sometimes damage crops as well, generally harming the young roots of plants as well as tender seedlings, young stems, and young leaves. Besides lawns, affected plants also include some ornamental flowering plants such as cyclamen, cineraria, cymbidium orchids, maidenhair fern, crabapple, fuchsia, and asparagus fern. In some households they are also kept as pets, generally fed fallen leaves and rotten wood, and sometimes various melons, fruits, and vegetables as treats.
How do you exterminate millipedes?
The spread and migration of millipedes can be controlled and killed off, and treating them at the source is the best approach. Effective extermination can be carried out by scattering quicklime over millipede habitats, burning with fire, scalding with boiling water, and spraying pyrethroid pesticides. The best extermination times are from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 5 p.m. until dark. Depending on the situation, you can proceed from indoors outward in turn to outdoors, farmland, and forests in an encircling manner, establishing good isolation belts and strictly preventing millipedes from spreading. If you accidentally touch a millipede and it causes a skin allergy, never ever wipe the area with alcohol; wash it with soapy water.
Common types of millipedes
1. Julus annulatus: The body of Julus annulatus is elongated and rounded with a smooth surface. It is about 12 cm long and about 7 mm wide, and the whole body is made up of many segments. From the collum to the anal segment, there are about 64 body segments. The larvae have fewer segments and only 3 pairs of legs; with each molt, the body segments and legs increase gradually. It mostly inhabits damp and shady areas, feeds on grass roots and decaying plants, and when touched it curls up motionless and gives off a foul odor. It is distributed in most parts of the country.
2. Spirobolus: The body of Spirobolus is elongated and slightly flattened, about 35 mm long, dark brown, with the sides of the back and the walking legs reddish yellow. The trunk consists of twenty segments. Segments 2 to 4 each have one pair of walking legs, and from segment 5 onward each has two pairs; the stink gland pores are on both sides of segments 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15 to 19. It inhabits moist farmland or the undersides of stone piles and the shaded sides of trees, likes to live in groups, and feeds on humus. There are also records of it harming crops, and it is distributed throughout our country.
3. Kronopolites svenhedini: The body of Kronopolites svenhedini is cylindrical, 26 to 30 mm long and 2.5 to 3.5 mm wide, with males slightly smaller. It is composed of 20 body segments and can be divided into three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. The lateral keels are not very developed, and behind the lateral keels there are stink glands. The tibiotarsal section, formed by the fusion of the tibia and tarsus, is broad and large. It inhabits grassy areas with humus on the shaded side of mountain cliffs or shaded spots under trees, and is distributed in Gansu, Sichuan, and other places.