Golden-Edged Banded Millipede

A handsome, active West African flat-back — dark with golden-beige segment edges (juveniles start white and darken with age). Easy, prolific, and colony-forming, making it a good beginner polydesmid. Keep a deep, humus-rich substrate with shredded deciduous leaves, white rotten wood, a little grit, and cuttlebone for calcium at 72-82°F and 70-80% humidity in a cross-ventilated enclosure. Most of its diet is the substrate itself; fruit, veg, and millipede food are taken occasionally. Like other flat-backs it can release a mild defensive secretion — wash hands after handling.