# Blessing or Curse - Centipedes!



## zedly (Jul 19, 2013)

So I was just looking into my viv the other day and BAM I saw some centipedes in there, 2 actually. There's no way they got in from the outside and I did not put them there myself, which means there must have been some eggs or something on a plant I purchased or in the springtail culture i seeded the viv with. Since i don't have any frogs in the viv I'm not super worried about them, and i think they are kinda cool TBH. However, I am curious if you guys think they will wreak havoc in there and decimate my springtails. I've only ever seen two at a time but that's not to say they were the same two or that there aren't more in there hidden away (viv is easily large enough to hide quite a few!)

Please advise, do I remove them as I see them or can I leave them be
(At this point I'm not sure there will ever be frogs in the viv)

For those of you curious, all plants came from josh's frogs and the springtail culture is from bugsincyberspace.com


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## cam1941 (Jan 16, 2014)

Bugs In Cyberspace sells centipedes... You could start by checking if the ones you found are the same as any of the ones they sell...

Some of the ones they sell are beasts and get huge. They would definitely pose a threat to any frogs you put in there. Others are probably harmless. I just can't stand those things for some reason. 

Sounds like you have time so I would say the most important thing is to find out what they are and that they are not juveniles of a larger venomous species.


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## zedly (Jul 19, 2013)

Long delay from the last post, but here goes anyway.

So as it turns out they are not centipedes but indeed they are millipedes! I was pretty stoked when i discovered this and realized they weren't going to eat/kill everything in my viv. I've let the population continue to grow because i kinda like them, and as i said before there aren't any darts in the viv ATM. They've just been consuming leaf litter and decaying woodstuffs.

At this point I'm just wondering if anyone can identify them? Sorry i know the photo is very bright


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## Entomologist210 (Apr 24, 2014)

Looks to me like Paradoxosomatidae. Which is as far as I can go since I only specialize in mites, ticks and insects. However, I was always told that it's a bad idea to keep them with my darts since the defensive compounds they use can be detrimental to frogs. Don't know if there's enough data around to back that up, but it's what I was told by my undergrad advisor.


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

They are a curse, they may or may not bother your frogs, their defense mechanism will prevent them from becoming food for them and they will end up destroying all wood features in the tank. They are very satisfying to crunch enmasse however getting rid of them short of redoing the tank is near impossible.


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## serial hobbiest (Mar 5, 2017)

Hmm... millipedes are generally poisonous, and distasteful to most predators. I'm curious if dart frogs don't mind how they taste, and even more curious if they're immune to their toxins, and even more curious if dart frogs snacking on hatchling millipedes would become poisonous themselves... Or maybe they'd just die. Sorry, I'm no help. I'll go away now.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

serial hobbiest said:


> Hmm... millipedes are generally poisonous, and distasteful to most predators. I'm curious if dart frogs don't mind how they taste, and even more curious if they're immune to their toxins, and even more curious if dart frogs snacking on hatchling millipedes would become poisonous themselves... Or maybe they'd just die. Sorry, I'm no help. I'll go away now.


Some small millipedes secrete pyrrolizidine oximes as a defense chemical and these have been found in some wild dendrobatids but you would have to look at the literature to find the species of frog, the species of millipede to ensure that you get a alkaloid that the frogs can use as opposed harm the frogs. 

some comments 

Ed


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