Millipedes are found on every continent on the planet except Antarctica, and are considered one of the key members of forest clean-up crews. They are a detritivores, meaning they eat leftover rotting foods and fallen leaves, cleaning up forest floors and recycling nutrients back into the soil. To tell them apart from centipedes, you need to check for large front pincers, as centipedes are carnivorous and will use venomous pincers to catch their prey.

There are also ways you can tell whether a red-legged millipede is a male or female. The males are usually thinner and shinier than the girls, and they’re missing their 7th pair of legs, whilst the females are typically a more matt colour, and are wider than the males as they need to carry eggs.

This species of millipede is found throughout rainforests in Kenya & Tanzania, in fact they can be found in the Udzungwa Rainforest and the Magombera Monkey Forest, Tanzanian nature reserves we are working to protect as part of our partnership with Reforest Africa!

Millipedes don’t have stingers or teeth to defend themselves, so in order to stop predators from eating them, they excrete an unpleasant liquid from their sides – it is foul smelling and stains everything to dissuade any possible threats from eating them.

It’s uncertain their status in the wild due to their secretive nature. However, because they are a species that lives in the rainforest, a habitat that is constantly decreasing in size, it is likely their numbers are also decreasing.