Myriapod Myriad

myriapod \'mir-ee-uh-pod\ n. a myriapod is a "bug with ten thousand legs".

myriad \ˈmir-ē-əd\ n. a very large number of things; ten thousand.

So....   Myriapod Myriad \'mir-ee-uh-pod ˈmir-ē-əd\ = 10,000 10,000.

10,000 Came

It's summertime in the Deep South.

And because of that, it will rain.

Here it comes--the rain has begun.

Steady, for five minutes.

And yep, here they come--millipedes. 

They pop out of the soil.  They creep out from under the foundation and its surrounding leaf litter.

Onset of the raid; climbing up from the foundation.

And UP, UP they drive, in droves, as if on a mission, they come literally by the thousands.  They inch up the outside of my house, up the screens around the porch, onto the porch's slab floor, and into the house.  The basement gets filled first.  Eventually they occupy the rest of the house, even up to the window sills.  I walk around the outside of the house to evaluate the invasion situation, and they are clustered in wads under the eaves of the house, all around it.  Smell that smell... 

UP, UP the outside walls

...even up to the windows...

Technically speaking, what are they?
  
The following educational information is not essential to the enjoyment or understanding of this article.  It is, however, interesting.

The genetic lineage layout of these critters goes, from top to bottom, like this:   

1. Kingdom Animalia (animals/like you and me)...
2. Phylum Arthropoda (arthropods/no internal skeleton)...
3. Subphylum Myriapoda (myriapods/bugs with ten-thousand legs), and then...
4. Class Diplopoda (diplopods/thousand-leggers)--collectively known as millipedes.      

They don't really have thousands of legs, but they can have a couple hundred.  Mine only have 60 legs. 

They eat plant materials and decaying organic matter.

All lack eyes.

Millipedes come in all sizes, but the ones in my story are about 2.5 cm (1") long, brown, and quite shiny.

Most have stink glands; hence the aforementioned smell.       

The very closely related centipedes are "hundred-leggers", but centipedes are not in this summer story.

The star--Oxidus gracilis (I think), 
or commonly called Greenhouse Millipede

What do they want?

The intelligent brains that be (the entomologists) say that the millipedes arrive regularly in autumn, and the reason they inch upward in droves is because they are in search of moisture.

Now, I always wanted to be an entomologist (bug expert), but the closest I ever got was by being a professional exterminator for 16 years.  I do, however, "hobby around" with bugs, so I know a little something about them.  And the storming pattern of these fascinating critters has in no way resembled the routine described by the intelligent brains! 

The millipedes have presented themselves to me in cycles that have been spaced apart, ten years (plus or minus), so I have gone years at a time without ever seeing any in my area.  During those 16 years of pest control in the same geographical area, there was only one year that I received scads of calls from customers needing help with millipede invasions.  Then, for a decade or so, not nary an encounter with millipedes.

Until...

Until the summer of 2004.  All that summer, my basement was jam-packed full of those things.  I sprayed chemicals inside, and I dusted with carbaryl (Sevin) outside.  That killed them, only after they all crawled up and out of the ground.  The only thing those applications do is give you big piles of dead millipedes all over the place, it doesn't prevent them from popping up out of the ground.

So as you see, this is not just a fall-of-the-year thing.  These millipedes, when it is their year, are an entire summer event.  They don't wait 'till fall.

Porch Crunch

And then came summer of 2014.  Here they all are again.  Same as in 2004.

The very first signal I got came in late May during Mass at St. Cecilia Catholic Church.  It was crawling across the floor beside me as I knelt in the pew.  And there was another on the wall, and then another.

And yes, it had rained.

Questions:  If the millipedes seek moisture, why do they flee from the ground as soon as it starts raining?  It's like they are trying to get away from moisture.  Or hey, maybe they feel it and want to rush UP to it faster.  Maybe they've felt too dry for too long.  But wait!  It's summertime in the southeastern United States.  It rains everyday.  Why do they make a beeline into my dry, dry, screened porch?...Only to die in a couple of days from the Sevin dust that I applied three weeks ago for the chipmunk ticks?

Yeah, yeah, there was a tick situation, but I nixed it.  You'll be glad to know I'm not talking about that today.

I know the questions I ask sound so layman-like, and I always liked to think of myself a little above that when it came to arthropods.  But hey, what the experts say about the millipedes' behavior is not matching their behavior here.  So I'm gonna' ask a layperson's questions.

The back porch's outside wall.  All those specs are the invaders.

Don't SLAM the porch door!  Small wad of millipedes at the top.

Meanwhile, my screened in porch floor is one solid mass of dead, crunchy millipedes.  Nowhere on it can you walk without hearing and feeling the crunch, crunch of multi-legged carcasses under foot. And incidentally, did I mention the SMELL??

Millipede pile after I swept my porch.  Card is for size comparison.  Most of the pile is millipede star of this story, but there are a couple of large ones from another order.  You'll also see a couple of pecan shells from the chipmunk problem.  There's a leaf or two.  And yeah, there is some dust!

Dead and Plenty

By the close of this "occupation", I will have witnessed the slow demise of many a Myria-clan member.  For instance, death at the hungry venom-filled whims of the webbed house spider invaders that I have allowed to settle in the corners of my home.  Many more of the millipedes will fall victim to my hands, either by chemical applications or the good ole' mash-effect.

I'm sitting in my living room by an open window, enjoying the rain sounds.  The screen is suddenly covered with millipedes.  With a single flick of my finger I thump the screen, thereby ejecting a hundred millipedes.  They uncontrollably fly out and away.  They come back in less than five minutes, only to be bounced again.  They keep crawling back because they must enjoy the thrill of the jettison.

A few have made it past the screen, and are checking out the window sill beside me.  I mash one with a paper towel.  Five minutes go by and I mash another.  In five more minutes I mash a third.

I discovered if you mash three or four of them within 12" of where you are seated, that in less than 10 minutes you will not only smell an extremely strong turpentine-like odor, you will also taste it on your tongue.  Mash a few more, and you'll feel it in your throat.   

I read that some very large species actually squirt their secretions out at their attacker, and that information makes me look at my own millipede situation with gladness; joy even.

They are so plentiful outside that when I arrive home and step out of my car, my senses are assaulted with turpentine sensation--from the living and from their deceased brethren.  You'd think I had a dead body lying around out there somewhere. 

You might already know, if you read my blog, that I can fill several pages with one smell .    
Aside from spiders, chemicals, and the "mash", many of the millipedes seem just plain suicidal.  By that I mean that they come in, head straight for a dark, dank corner of the basement, and wait to die--as if they have just given up on life.

   Final stop for some:  A basement corner with mold and mycelium hyphae (fungus), 
which I will eliminate after the millipede season has passed.  

On the lighter side, most of them will return to their obscure, hidden places after the sun comes out, and after the rains subside.  They retreat so as to wait until the next rain comes, and then it will all happen again--the millipede uprising.  Over and over, rain in and rain out.

VALUE$

After a couple of months of listening to me gripe about the millipede invasion, Joe is sympathetic to my annoyance at the intrusion of thousands.  But they have not bothered him to the gripe-point as they have me.  He has crunched his way over many a sheet of millipede carcasses without uttering a complaint.  His nose isn't as powerful as mine either, so he isn't aware of their odoriferous qualities.

One night, I'm surfing the internet and Joe is sitting over there in his recliner.  I search the web with the line "how to use a millipede".  The next interaction happened in a blast of an instant--a hilarious instant.

"I just found a new use for millipedes," I announced to Joe.

I didn't exactly mean to say "new use" because I had just read that it was a long-time behavior of Capuchin monkeys of Venezuela to smear millipedes all over their bodies to act as an insect repellent.  In my mind, I had discovered a new and natural product to help us with mosquitoes that plague our own yard.  So it was only new to me.  The "new use" part slipped out of my mouth and made it sound like millipedes were really a valuable asset, and that we had been truly blessed.  The way Joe heard me, in that one little sentence "I just found a new use for millipedes", he automatically deduced that the things I formerly complained about were now financially worth something to us.    

"Well we're one shy!" he stressed harshly as he flipped the recliner upright.  What did I hear?  Is he on the defensive?  "I just flushed one down the toilet!" he quickly barked.  I began laughing uncontrollably at this point, because I knew he had wrongly deduced that I now appreciated that the millipedes were here.  "Well, I f#ck#d up!" he sharply apologized, knowing I would become more hysterical with laughter.  After I told him, with broken breaths, the monkey and mosquito repellent thing, he starts with the "Why are the big ones the centipedes and the little ones the millipedes?!" (he's mistaken, by the way).  He is stirred up now--angry at the bug world.  This conversation is making him think about the mosquitoes and ticks that have likewise been giving us much grief this summer.  I am laughing again.  I am trying to type what he is saying and he knows that's what I'm doing.  I say "slow down so I can type you," and "you say such funny things!"  His profound response, "I need a scribe like David to follow me around."

I digress.

So they DO have market value, but not in Alabama.  And they DO have some natural predators in the world, like my house spiders, for instance.  Many other types of "bugs" eat them, too.  And birds, toads, and several other animals are natural enemies to the millipedes.  We know monkeys, right?  Although they don't prey upon the millipedes to eat them, they just use them.  If we had the same millipedes here that are in the Venezuelan rainforest, we'd also have Capuchins here to wear them.  Our millipedes just aren't as good as the ones in Venezuela.  

        This large millipede from a different order is not a member of the invading hoard.  These are occasional visitors.  Also harmless, but they leave a red, smelly puddle-of-a-mess when they die.  So rancid are they that the flies move in for a feast and an egg-laying frenzy. 

I Don't Really Fight It

As I mentioned before, applying chemicals so many times just leaves you with a bunch of carcasses.  The best way to fight the millipede invasions at your place is to clean up the leaf litter and other organic matter around your house's foundation.  Unfortunately, that also means getting rid of any of that fancy mulch you have applied to adjacent flower or shrub beds.  If you want to apply chemicals, there are things you can get over the counter.  Some of the best on the current market are Bifenthrin granules.  You can also get spray formulas such as Deltamethrin or Cypermethrin, or you can apply more eco-friendly sounding applications that are available; comprised of things like clove and thyme oils.  No matter what type you use, always follow manufacturer's directions. 

Why don't I clean up my yard to ward them off?  I guess I get too much enjoyment out of them.  I like watching the spiders get them, and I like flicking them off the screens.  I like counting them and snapping their photos.  I like complaining about them.  And crunching them.  And mashing them.  And smelling them.
 

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