A reader just sent us a video of a creature he discovered under his wife’s keyboard. The video is quite short, but we can see that the specimen is light brown, almost golden, segmented, has two antennae, and moves as if it has legs. Here is a screenshot from the video:
We believe this is a millipede! Although we usually see millipedes that are darker brown or black, we still are confident that this is a millipede because it matches all of the other criteria. Millipedes have segmented, hard-shelled bodies, two antennae, and two pairs of legs per body segment. There are about 12,000 named species of millipedes currently. We are unable to identify this millipede by a specific name, but there are so many species of millipedes that it would be a difficult task to determine species without a better quality image.
Millipedes are typically scavengers, which means they eat damp or decaying wood particles and leaf litter. If their habitat dries out and there is no longer damp wood available, millipedes will resort to eating live plants. This being said, we do not know why this millipede was hiding under a keyboard. We highly doubt there is decaying wood hidden there that they might have been munching on. Since our reader only mentioned seeing one, the creature probably ended up in the house by accident. He should take the millipede outside, and not dwell on the matter too much. If millipedes, or other creatures, continue to make guest appearances in our reader’s home, there might be a bigger issue at hand. But let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.
To conclude, a reader sent us a video of a golden worm-like organism crawling around. We believe tey found a millipede!
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