Trigoniulus corallinus
Scarlet Millipede: Advanced Care Guide
Keeper Snapshot: A small bright tropical millipede that thrives in moist communal setups: adults reach about 2.5-3.5 inches.
Group: MillipedesDifficulty: Spice 1: Kid FriendlySetup: Tropical communal millipedeHandling: Brief contact tolerated. Handling is optional and never required for good care, and a fall can injure the animal.
Use This Guide Safely
- Confirm the exact animal. Match this guide to the species, locality, size, and life stage on your label. If the ID is uncertain, use the more conservative part of the range and ask before changing the setup.
- Change one thing at a time. Treat temperature and humidity as target zones, then watch posture, burrowing, drinking, feeding, and molt behavior before making another adjustment.
- Respect the handling boundary. If the guide says no handling, fast, defensive, or medically significant, plan transfers with catch cups, locked lids, and no bare hands. For serious bites, stings, or symptoms, seek emergency medical care.
Quick Snapshot
| Temperature | 72-80°F |
|---|---|
| Humidity | High ambient (75-85%) with fine-mesh cross ventilation; damp lower layers, drier surface |
| Setup Type | Tropical communal millipede |
| Substrate | Moist leaf/wood substrate |
| Feeding | Leaf litter, veggies, calcium |
| Care Difficulty | Spice 1: Kid Friendly |
| Handling | Brief contact tolerated. Handling is optional and never required for good care, and a fall can injure the animal. |
Humidity zones: Very Low under 30% - Low 30-60% - Low-Moderate 40-70% - Moderate 60-80% - Moderate-High 70-85% - High 80%+ - Very High 90%+
Enclosure Format / Size Class
- terrestrial burrow setup for display colonies
Warnings First
- Keep moist
- Small escape risk
- Needs edible substrate
- Moist plus still equals sour substrate, and sour substrate is inedible to a detritivore. Fine mesh low on two opposite walls keeps the food layer composting properly.
Simple Care
- Easy when kept humid.
- Fine-mesh vents low on two opposite walls so air crosses the substrate surface.
- Shallow water dish packed with pebbles so juveniles cannot drown.
- Great communal starter species.
- Moss helps maintain moisture.
Advanced Keeper Notes
Enclosure & Microclimate
- Use a rich substrate and keep leaf litter on the surface at all times.
- Pair that rich substrate with cross ventilation, because the two work together. Put fine mesh low on two opposite walls so air crosses the substrate surface while the lower layers stay damp. A rich, moist bin with only lid venting composts anaerobically: it turns sour instead of earthy, mites bloom, and the animals stop grazing. On a starter species this is the failure that makes people think millipedes are harder than they are.
- Hold the moisture in the substrate rather than in the air and let the vents flow. Sealing a bin to keep humidity up is the wrong lever; depth of damp substrate is the right one.
- Judge by squeeze and smell rather than by a gauge. A handful from the lower layer clumps like a wrung-out sponge, releases no free water, and smells like forest floor. Sour or ammonia means more airflow and a substrate refresh.
- Keep a shallow water dish packed with pebbles or coarse grit so the waterline sits below the rim. Millipedes climb smooth surfaces poorly and drown in open dishes, and this species breeds readily enough that there are usually juveniles around.
- Mist under the leaf litter and moss rather than over the surface. The litter layer is where they graze and shelter, so keeping the damp there and the surface breathable serves both.
Feeding, Growth & Maintenance
- Small groups can be sold in starter enclosures; avoid overcrowding without enough substrate.
- Let vegetable foods dry/remove before they mold.
- Molting: millipedes molt underground, sealing into a chamber and going still for days or weeks. Never dig up or disturb a buried animal, keep that part of the substrate from drying out, and keep cuttlebone available, since they eat the shed exoskeleton to reclaim calcium.
Possible Origin / Range
- Likely native range: Southeast Asia and broader pantropical introduced range.
- Habitat translation: Warm humid leaf-litter colony with decayed wood and calcium.
Advanced Keeper Details
- This species can reproduce well when substrate is mature and stable.
- Keep ventilation high enough to prevent mold blooms under supplemental foods.
- Adult size ~2.5-3.5 in; pantropical (and an introduced 'weed' species in many places): prolific in a good setup and occasionally parthenogenetic, so a culture can take off fast.