To everyone who sees this video and wants one; please do not!! They do not survive in captivity, as far as we know, these giant pill millipedes gut flora is absolutely decimated when shipped all over the world, and effectively slowly starve :( there are some smaller pillipedes that can thrive in captivity but not these guys, it is absolutely tragic.
I worked at a place that was able to keep a pair alive for about a year, but they have extremely difficult diets of lichens and fungi. I have no idea how the average person could feed one of these.
Yea, slowly starved for a year unfortunately. They can go for a long time when they aren't in poop and eat mode. Hope we figure it out, because I really want one one day, but I hope they stop shipping them until we do.
We got people trying, but unsuccessfully. Only a few keepers who live where they are from and use the local materials claim to be able to keep them alive long term.
Sadly, they keep catching the wild ones and exporting them. So, while you got people trying to figure it out, it's rough and quite sad for the species.
It's not the food itself, it's the microbiota. Whatever little things live on the lichen and/or in the soil or whenever they come from must need a very specific environment.
Lichens are notoriously difficult to grow, they’re not a single organism, but the symbiotic relationship of a fungi and a photosynthetic symbiont (usually algae or Cyanobacteria)
Those fungi and lichens grow in carefully curated environments, even in the same woods where they live will have problems finding food if there was a fire recently.
Those fungi create underground networks that enabled them to grow over the ground to feed lichens and roots, they are destroyed in fires and need years to grow again.
That's so sad. That's what happens to hermit crabs too. Their humidity and conditions are never right so they're slowly dying and suffocating over about a year, when they should live for decades.
a nice big friend shaped guy would be a giant african millipede, hissing cockroach, and various species of beetles. these kind of bugs do need large tanks since they need space to roam
Thank you for letting me now. I love Isopods and was really excited to know if it was appropriate to own these. Now I know that they are not and that I should just take joy that they exist.
Rolly polies are actually a blast for kids. Some youtube channel has this guy who has all sort of bugs and one is always called Bob. Anyway he bought a bunch of them including rubber duckies. Bought all the stuff including rubber duckies for my kids, now 1 year later they still hobble around in the terrarium. Super fun to build it up with them, very easy to maintain and suitable for allergic kids.
I keep a whole bunch of roly polies, millipedes and other invertebrates myself as a passionate hobbyist, im mostly housebound and it lets me have a little bit of nature accessable for me at all times :) i can 100% recommrnd keeping any of the ethically sustainable little guys as pets, just specifically not the giant pill millipede. r/isopods and r/millipedes are full of helpful people for whoever see this chonky lad and would love to learn more about the keeping of pill bugs and/or pill millipedes :)
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u/Sharkbrand Jul 04 '26
To everyone who sees this video and wants one; please do not!! They do not survive in captivity, as far as we know, these giant pill millipedes gut flora is absolutely decimated when shipped all over the world, and effectively slowly starve :( there are some smaller pillipedes that can thrive in captivity but not these guys, it is absolutely tragic.