Collected millipedes.
Most intriguing! What do you do with them?
They are a delicacy in Scotland and are deep fried
ooh, lots and lots of tiny drumsticks.
I thought I might try making a business out of breeding and selling invertebrates as pets. I'm going to raise various species of triops as well as other freshwater branchiopods like fairy shrimp, clam shrimp and daphnia, I've got a breeding colony of wild-type Neocaridina heteropoda (a freshwater dwarf shrimp), and I thought that woodlice and millipedes would make good pets too. Both of them breed prolifically, are are very undemanding pets and can be safely kept together in colonies, and I find them interesting and quite attractive.
The woodlice and millipedes tend to hide a lot, so I've been looking at ways to construct habitats for them that would make them easier to observe. I have an idea for constructing an ant-farm-type habitat out of sheets of clear acrylic that slot into a wooden frame, but with more space between the panes than in a typical ant farm to give larger invertebrates space to move around. I don't have a router for cutting the slots that I'll need, and I've been looking at various models this morning and wondering what I should buy.
I am fascinated by this! I've heard of people keeping pet scorpions with the stingers removed, but pet insects are a new concept for me!
http://www.exotic-pets.co.uk/millipedes-for-sale.html
That's an interesting site; I kind of want some Barbados neon millipedes now, but they're expensive and probably require a heated tank.
I'm hoping to find a niche that isn't already filled by existing suppliers, and I think a good place to start would be with not-so-exotic species that will do fine without things like heat lamps and UV bulbs that would put off more casual buyers. I know that when I've bought invertibrates, the ability of a species to survive the typical conditions in my house without any special life-support measures has been an important selling point for me, and the ability to survive being neglected for a week or two at a time is also a big plus.
The European species of triops, T.cancriformis (the one featured in my
triops videos on Youtube), does fine at room temperature and I've kept them in my pond during the summer, plus they're quite tolerant of dirty water and don't need much care, but other species of triops need higher temperatures, and can be killed by a cold summer night if kept outside in Scotland, or if kept on a windowsill or an unheated room during winter or spring, which is why I've mostly bred the European ones before now. The woodlice and millipedes that I've gathered from under rocks and around the compost heap in my garden are likewise suited to the local climate, and would make good pets for kids or for people who don't want to spend a lot of money on equipment or go to a lot of bother to look after them.
I could promote my business by posting videos of my invertebrates and habitats on Youtube and directing people to my site through them, and I'd also like to try selective breeding. I've bought a germicidal fluorescent tube that emits UV-C, and I'm going to experiment with irradiating organisms with it to see if I can produce any interesting mutations that could be propagated and stabilised to form mutant strains like albino millipedes or hyperactive woodlice that would give me something unique to sell.