# Can you help me ID this arthropod? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411 "2018-08-28T15:36:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411/1 "2018-08-28T15:36:12Z")
My assistant - who’s beginning to read here - has this issue with a millipede or whatever in his yard. We don’t know what it [The offending arthropod](https://twitter.com/HouyShannon/status/1034462165502189575?s=03) They’ve gone from one to 50 or more over the last weekend. Can you fine people be the pride of the dope and identify it for her? And provide advice? Fight back? Flee? Something in between? Location: coastal South Carolina northwest of Charleston. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411/2 "2018-08-28T15:51:14Z")
It looks like a Greenhouse millipede. > **[Greenhouse millipede](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_millipede)** > > Fontaria gracilis C. L. Koch,1847 Paradesmus dasys Bollman, 1887 Orthomorpha gracilis Bollman, 1893 Kepolydesmus sontus Chamberlin, 1910Oxidus gracilis Cook, 1911 > The greenhouse millipede (Oxidus gracilis), also known as the hothouse millipede, short-flange millipede, or garden millipede, is a species of millipede in the family Paradoxosomatidae that has been widely introduced around the world, and is sometimes a pest in greenhouses. > Greenhouse millipedes achieve lengths of 18 to 23 mm (0.71... ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411/3 "2018-08-28T15:55:36Z")
> [@](#): > > People who are frequently plagued by millipedes will immediately notice something unusual about this picture. There’s only one millipede! During periods of extended wet warm weather, homes and other buildings located near suitable breeding sites may experience hundreds or thousands of these hard-bodied, ¾ inch long arthropods around the premises. They don’t bite and they don’t damage plants, but large numbers of millipedes dying on the carport and crawling into the house can quickly become a seriously annoying nuisance. > > … > > Control: Insecticides are not especially useful for controlling millipedes and preventing indoor invasions. Good exclusion practices are the best first line of defense. This means sealing cracks and crevices through which millipedes and other pests might enter and installing tight-fitting weather seals and thresholds around doors and windows. A broom and dust pan, and/or a wet/dry vacuum or leaf blower is often the best “treatment” for millipedes that accumulate on carports and patios. Even if you kill them with insecticides in these locations, you still have to get rid of all those crunchy little bodies. Exterior building perimeter sprays with insecticides such as bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, or carbaryl can sometimes help reduce the number of millipedes that make it all the way inside the building, but don’t expect complete control during periods of heavy millipede movement. Dry weather is the best cure for millipede problems. > **[Greenhouse Millipede | Vol 3, No. 14 | Mississippi State University Extension...](http://extension.msstate.edu/newsletters/bugs-eye-view/2017/greenhouse-millipede-vol-3-no-14)** > > Oxidus gracilis Order: DiplopodaFamily: Polydesmida ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411/4 "2018-08-28T16:10:40Z")
15 minutes. Pretty good, guys. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-help-me-id-this-arthropod/820411/5 "2018-08-28T17:31:19Z")
Sometimes at night after rainy weather I get hundreds of these climbing all over the exterior of my house. And once I found a tight clump of hundreds of them gathered together on my porch–possibly some type of borgy?