This year, I’ve had more calls about roaming “worms” before rainy season than ever before (usually they move inside a few weeks after rainy season stops).

“What are all these crunchy worms on our lanai and side walls and in the living room? I don’t like them!” It is like clockwork, yet the three millipede experts I contacted do not understand what triggers the mass movement of so many multi-footed arthropods. Its a biological oddity in that the millipedes are on a suicide mission- they can’t survive in low humidity environments.

Millipedes (nicknamed “millies”) are not insects or worms. They are in a distinct taxonomic group, distinguished by the unique characteristic of having four legs, not two like centipedes, per body segment. Now that is acoordination miracle!

See 2 articles on millipedes:

https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/collierco/files/2018/06/Millipede-invasion-NDN-Nov.-14-2014-Doug-Caldwell.pdf

https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/collierco/files/2018/05/Millipedes-R.-Shelley-292-Occasional-Invaders-2016-1-6pp-BLOG-r.pdf

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