Millipedes

The gentlest animals on the site. Millipedes are slow, docile detritivores whose defence is a curl and a bitter secretion, and whose husbandry is really substrate cultivation: deep bedding rich in decaying hardwood and leaf litter, a calcium source, stable moisture, and the animal manages itself. They are handleable, long-lived, and close to impossible to provoke.

The group's market is shaped by one piece of history: US restrictions on African millipede imports, in place for over two decades, cut American keepers off from the classic giants and built the domestic trade around natives and Asian imports instead. The Florida and eastern natives are wild-collected in volume each warm season, which keeps them permanently accessible; the African fire millipedes and banded giants circulate more freely in Europe and carry provenance questions everywhere.

What moves price is size, colour, and paperwork, in that order. Wild-collected adults arrive at unknown ages, which matters for animals that can live many years, and captive-bred juveniles are the better buy whenever offered. Nobody breeds the common natives commercially because collection is easier, so their pricing is structural and permanent. As a first invertebrate for a household, nothing else here competes.