Monday, October 26, 2009

Macro: Millipede


I found this millipede in one of my planter pot. Millipede means 1,000 legs. But most millipedes have less than 200 legs. That is still a lot of legs! Millipede will scurry very quickly but this one was not moving much when I pulled it out from the pot. I think this is baby millipede.
Millipedes eat plants. They eat stems, roots, leaves. They love damp places, live under things like logs and rocks and piles of leaves. They are actually pest, can harm our lovely greenly plants. Millipedes look scary but they won’t bite you. It is easier to use your hand to catch them and throw away, of course you will wear gloves, right? If they are too many, you can spray insecticides.  Well, as a plants lover, how to control pest is a lesson we all must learn.
Here, the millipede is ready to show off its translucent red here.
Visit Lisa's Chaos at http://lisaschaos.com for more macro shots.

3 comments:

Arija said...

Please be careful of the pesticides you use as they poison the soil and in consequence kills little ground feeding birds as well. At an ornithological meeting there were only two of us who had nesting red robins. We compared notes and we were the only two who did NOT use the recommended pesticide although we had a millipede plague at the time. We both had gardens of a number of acres for bird habitat.

Millipedes are a dreadful pest, they are poisonous and in our area have no predators and they are vile when you bite on a tiny one in a strawberry!

Jama said...

Millipidede give me the creep! imagine them crawling into little holes....eeewwwww

MaR said...

Very informative post!! Happy Monday :)
My MM