Millipede nest
I stumbled across a big,
beautiful millipede while weeding this week, then noticed these round
balls beneath her. Were they castings (aka poop)? Well, yes
and no.
Female millipedes dig
nests like this when they're ready to lay eggs, and many species form a
protective case around each egg with their own castings. I broke
one ball open and, sure enough, a tiny egg was inside. Sure of the
balls' ID, I carefully put Mama Millipede back in her nest and swept
some dirt back over top of her. A planting of buckwheat
ensures the millipede's nest won't be pawed up again until at least a
month from now, at which point the eggs will have hatched.
Inside, I learned that
mother millipedes sometimes guard their eggs until the babies hatch and
that the tiny millipedes come out of the egg with only six legs, making
them look like tiny insects. The youngsters quickly push out of
their old skins and add new sets of legs with each molt, eventually
turning into helpful decomposers of decaying plant debris like their
mother. Live long and prosper, little millipedes!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Hi,
We are currently working on a television project for kids between 5 and 12 years old. Our objective is to make the kids love insects. We really like your photos of the millipede nest, and we were wondering if we could use it as a reference to illustrate what it looks like.
Let us know if you are willing to share (non exclusive) rights for these pictures. We will make sure to give you proper credit in the end credit of the episode.
Have a great day