These friends are millipedes. They just happen to be the kind that can roll into a nice lil ball.
They are NOT roly polies. Roly polies are terrestrial isopods, usually called pill bugs or woodlice, and they’re a kind of crustacean. There are also freshwater and marine isopods, including the giant isopods of the deep ocean that can reach 30″ in length or more.
Here’s a typical millipede most people are more familiar with:
They roll into spirals for protection instead of orbs:
Pill millipedes and roly polies are not closely related. Turns out rolling into a ball is a fairly common defense mechanism adapted by a lot of species! Including a few mammals :)
I would like to follow up this post with:
Do not ever buy Madagascar Pill Millipedes.
yes people sell them online. yes i want one too.
they should not be removed from their island and absolutely will not survive more than a month or two.
we do not know why, but something in their island diet or environment is *so incredibly specific* that we cannot replicate it. and it’s not just this species – all Madagascar pill millipedes die in capitivity. they live nowhere else on earth and we cannot breed them – every Madagascar pill millipede for sale is wild caught, and taking these rare and beautiful critters from their home on Madagascar is extremely dubious at best. do not buy them. do not do it. find a european Glommeris species or an interesting isopod.
Yeah invertebrate hobbyists have tried to crack the secret of pill millipedes for decades to no avail. Every so often someone claims to have kept them alive over a year or had babies, but can never prove it, or they all still drop dead shortly afterwards.
