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Although sexing millipedes comes easily to me, this may only be because I have kept millipedes for a long time now, but to the untrained eye it can be extremely difficult, I hope this page will come across as easy to understand and you'll soon be able to give your milli's their own identity and name!
Here is a male Yellow legged millipedes as you can see where the arrow is pointing, he looks as if he may have some legs missing or half a leg missing, well in a way you are right!
On the 7th segment down their bodies male millipedes have 'modified' legs, this millipede being in a frisky mood is showing clearly his modified legs, they are short and don't even ressemble legs, in fact tucked away inside there are his genitals, the female has this in the same place although cannot be seen.
More about breeding on the
Here is a female amber banded millipede, now here although not a very good picture, you can see no gaps throughout her body, she has two pairs of legs to every segment of her body, her genitals are not visable.
Females in most species will be generally bigger than males at full size, usually a lot chunkier in the body too, but its not best to go by size especially if age is unknown.
Now my pictures are pretty shoddy so i have put together some simple diagrams to try and make this a little clearer!
Now there are several things i found with males depending on the species included in the diagrams.
In picture 1 here is basically what is shown in the above picture of the male yellow legged, hard to explain but you can see on the diagram there.
In picture 2 is what i have seen in a couple of species like my chocolates for instants, it basically looks like a pair of missing legs clean off! But to tell the truth it is only because the genitalia is not visable, they are tucked away probably because the millipede is not sexually active.
In picture 3 is another that is seen on many species, in my case an african black, the genitalia (or part of) is visable as what look like a pair of very short legs.
Now in picture 4 is one i have recently come across in red legged millipedes, it seems the genitalia is visable, a translucent, white, rubbery substance almost like a segment itself, like bulging, it seems to be normal and i have witnessed it in a couple of individuals of this species.
And the female simple, only one picture here as all are identicle, she has her full sets of legs on every segment.
Although some people have mistaken males for females simply because they haven't checked properly, while upon picking the millipede up it tries to curl up therefore making it harder to sex them, and because they tuck their heads under, people miss the gap and put it as a female.
The best and most effective way i have found for sexing millipedes is to place them into a transparent, plastic or preferably glass bowl, and as they uncurl and try to climb the sides of the bowl you can simply lif it up and check underneath without the problem of the millipede curling and being deffensive!
young and jeuvenile millipedes can sometimes be sexed, but it is much more difficult and inacurate due to them not showing yet.
Some millipedes will have legs missing in other places, please note this has nothing to do with the sex of the animal but simply legs they have lost in an accident or such.
