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Giant Emerald Pill-Millipede: when these enormous millipedes are all rolled up, their bodies can be as big as a baseball, a tennis ball, or a small orange

This species (Zoosphaerium neptunus) is commonly known as a giant emerald pill-millipede. The females can measure up to 90mm long (roughly 3.5 inches), making this the largest species of pill-millipede in the world.

There is a significant degree of sexual dimorphism in this species, with the males measuring only about 45mm (1.8 inches) long -- roughly half the size of the females.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes are found only in Madagascar, which is home to several endemic species of giant pill-millipedes (order Sphaerotheriida). The Malagasy name for giant pill-millipedes is "Tainkintana," which means "shooting-star."

Pill-millipedes use conglobation as a defense mechanism, which means that they can curl their bodies up into a spherical shape so that their dorsal plates form a protective shield around the softer, more vulnerable parts of their bodies, just like an actual pill-bug or a "roly-poly."

When they roll themselves up completely, they look almost like gently polished chunks of malachite, emerald, or jade.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes will sometimes form large swarms that travel together as a group. This is the only species of giant pill-millipede that engages in any sort of swarming behavior, and the purpose of that behavior is still unclear. The swarms often contain thousands of individuals, with almost all of them moving in the same direction, even when there is no physical contact that might allow the millipedes to "herd" one another along.

Their swarming behavior also has some very peculiar features, as this article explains:

During swarming, Zoosphaerium neptunus individuals pay little attention to their surroundings; many specimens were observed walking straight into and drowning in small puddles. Some swarms even display ‘cliché lemming behaviour:' in Marojejy, a large part of a swarm walked into and drowned in a small river.

No single specimen was observed walking ‘against the current,' all specimens were moving in the same direction (southeast), even when not in contact with one another.

Of 273 randomly collected individuals, 105 were males, while 168 were females. The males were 8.3 - 14.1 mm wide (average width 10.4 mm). According to the inner horns of the posterior telopods, all males were sexually mature. The females were 9.95 - 15.4 mm wide (average width 11.4 mm). All females displayed non sclerotized vulvae and were sexually immature.

Some researchers argue that the swarming serves as a defense mechanism, providing a layer of protection (or at least some cryptic cover) against local predators, but the swarming behavior is still poorly understood.

Important Note: I just want to remind everyone that these animals belong in their own natural habitat -- they should not be trapped, bought/sold, traded, shipped, collected, or kept as pets. This particular species does not survive well in captivity, either, and the demand for these "exotic" invertebrates is putting the wild populations in jeopardy. The previous article discusses those issues, too:

Another possible threat for Z. neptunus swarms are collections for the pet trade. There exists a large demand in Japan, Europe and North America for 'green -eyed monsters’ as pets. Giant pill -millipedes from Madagascar unfortunately have a very short survival time in terraria. The species is specialized on low-energy food (dead leaves), and adapted to the cool climates (<20°C) of the highlands. Specimens in terraria often starve to death quickly.

So I know that they're adorable and really, really fascinating...but let's just let them be their chunky, adorable little selves out in the wild where they belong.

Sources & More Info:

European Journal of Taxonomy: Seven New Giant Pill-Millipede Species and New Records of the Genus Zoosphaerium from Madagascar

Madagascar Conservation & Development: Swarming Behavior in the World's Largest Giant Pill-Millipede, Z. neptunus, and its Implication for Conservation Efforts

Bonn Zoological Bulletin Supplementum: The Giant Millipedes, Order Sphaerotheriida (an Annotated Species Catalogue) (PDF)

African Invertebrates: Madagascar's Living Giants: Discovery of Five New Species of Endemic Giant Pill-Millipedes from Madagascar (PDF)

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Congratulations! You are the new sidekick to a DC or Marvel superhero. Spin the wheel to determine who your mentor is. (NO RE-SPINS)

Assume you will have a similar superpower or will learn a similar skill set (for the non-powered heroes) as your mentor or one of your mentor's canon sidekicks (dealer's choice) so you aren't completely screwed.

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A reminder that I have the cutest and best dog ever!

I want to train her a bit more this year - she’s gotten really good at ignoring the chickens, coming when called, she’s great at “leave it” and pretty good at “wait,” and can ever kinda play “fetch” now, but I’d like to get her to walk better on a leash in public. She just gets excited so easily and that makes her distracted and she pulls. Dog training is hard, you have to be really consistent which I personally struggle with, but it’s amazing to see how much Treasure’s learned already. She only knew “sit” when I first got her! She’s the kind of dog who’s just so eager to please, so she’s a quick learner - it’s really me who struggles, haha! But she’s just such a wonderful friend, she goes everywhere with me and she’s always happy, she’s my perfect girl and my instant serotonin boost!

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Fresh new first eggie update! Rusty has laid her first egg. I’m not sure what color this even is. Moss?

First egg day is always magical. I brought home eggs to hatch in March and now these beautiful ladies are finally starting to lay! It’s been a very eager 29 weeks since they’ve hatched. (And I’ve been saying “aaaany day now for about 5 weeks.)

Not sure who laid them but I suspect a black copper marran and an olive egger (front two). The two in the back came from my black australorp, Purdy. We’re still working on laying them in nest boxes but I’m pleased as pie that they’re laying at all!

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Interrupting bath time!

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Iconic!

…I want to just draw a fashion zine of just Miss Piggy, oh my god. she is so underrated and underutilized, where is my succession-like muppets satire thing LOL I want it so bad. let me do it disney call me pls

EDIT FOR JAN 2025: I’M MAKING A ZINE OF MISS PIGGY FASHIONS. It is happening, I have heard your comments. Please stay tuned to my instagram for updates!! Here’s a preview:

thank you for like, a bajillion notes!!!

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Yeah. Ok, I hate this too.

what’s an animal fact that you HATE :)

Instead of losing their tail when they get attacked by a predator, fishscale geckos slough off their scales and run around looking like a raw chicken tender until the scales regenerate (it takes a few weeks)

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About ten, fifteen years ago I wrote a story about a guy living in a Capitalist dystopia. His walls, furniture, and tableware are all covered in smart displays. Basically animated wallpaper. It's sold as being able to turn your room or objects into anything - A nice forest view, outer space, a fantasy realm... but the companies that run this stuff keep sneaking ads in.

It gets so bad he's always being woken up by adverts that offer insomnia cures and better bedding that play when he tries to sleep.

So he buys the ad-free tier, and it's great... for a few months. And then he starts getting adverts from 'premium partners'. So he goes up a level... and the same thing happens.

So he jailbreaks his wallpaper and sends all the ad servers to 0.0.0.0 and voila... he can sleep.

Until this SWAT team blows his door off and drag him off to jail. The Ad companies are suing him for loss of revenue for the products he' notionally have bought if he'd watched their adverts, based on some weird 'The average consumer buys X products with an average value of Y' calculation.

The judge is like 'well I dun wanna annoy the sponsors' so he RICO's this guy's house and possessions and sends him to jail.

... which is a nice relaxed non-volent offender jail for the corporately disenfranchised. But because these people have no money... there's no ads and now he's happy because the only place he's free... is in prison.

Which at the time was a bit much and now it's like: Called it.

Elon's suing companies for not advertising because he's losing revenue. He's also cranking the price of Ad Free Twitter. Disney and Amazon play adverts on their paid service when services used to be free because of the adverts... and now you have to pay to watch the adverts or go up a couple of tiers.

And google's going around freaking out about ad-blockers.

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Just learned about Bull Press, a tabletop publisher that focuses on games that are prison compliant (no hardcover, no dice, no maps), and their catalogue seems sick as hell. Def gonna pick smth up when I get paid next. They do a lot of donation work with books for prisoners programs!

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I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.

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heart - shaped scallion found In pho . reblog for good luck & yummy soup 500000 forwver

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to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

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you've got 2 admit that the oft repeated command to "touch grass" in itself illustrates a great disconnect from the tru wholesomeness of the offline world. unless you meant a kind of wild grass, a lovely tassel cord rush or even the humble rattlesnake grass. but we know that's not what they mean. to the chronically online, grass = lawn and nothing more. and a lawn is an abomination on par with the worst brainworms big online has to offer. touching a lawn will not help you. You've got to go injure yourself on some swordgrass for god's sake

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San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia), family Colubridae, northern California, USA

ENDANGERED.

Photograph by Bonnerscar