Pill Millipedes on St. Croix

Life in the tropics(which is wonderful) means you never know from one day to the next what new insect on land or jellyfish in the water will appear. i swear even after 30+ years on St. Croix the things nature throws at us never ceases to amaze me.

You may think that you have seen it all but i guarantee something new will pop up and create havoc. A few years ago it was the invasion of the “Crazy Hairy Ants.” You can actually google them, they are real and they have invaded St. Croix and have no predators. They came in accidentally in plant pots and if you haven't experienced them yet and live here... you will... as they have been marching all over the North Shore now for years.

Here at home we have a mordor poison powder ring circling the house to keep them at bay but sometimes they break through the defenses and make it into the house. We have learned to stay vigilant(never running out of poison powder)... but they will win...they will break down the mordor ring and take over the world of that i am sure.

This year the invasion is different. It's been raining which usually brings out the gongolos, flying termites, and mosquitoes which are just the normal pests.

When i first got back from the sailing trip i thought we had mice in the house. i wasn't wearing my glasses but i kept finding these odd black balls. Naturally i swept them up and looked for more mice evidence but couldn't find any. A few days went by before i asked my husband if he had been seeing them also. He wasted no time in telling me to put my glasses on and take a closer look at those mouse turds next time i saw some.

Well this morning after waking up and finding a total invasion all over the house i put my glasses on and discovered they were wiggling. Hundreds of little black peppercorns with little white wiggly legs were all over the living room and kitchen floor. i swept them up and put them in a dust pan so I could get a better look. Of course you all know my pseudo scientific side kicks in and is more curious than alarmed. i'm pushing them around in the dust pan, getting out my magnifying glass, taking pics and salvaging the ones still alive.

i know other women may have been screaming for the exterminator but i wanted to know why they were here and where they had come from.

i remember as a kid finding these out in the yard and playing with them. i think we called them rolly-pollys or something like that. They were always so cool the way they would roll up into a ball when disturbed but will unroll if you leave them alone. Some of the ones i found this morning were dead but a lot of them were still alive so i tossed them over the railing to give them another chance after immortalizing them with my digital camera. You can double click and really see how lovely they look.

A quick search on line got me the name i was looking for...Pill Millipede... not wood lice. Turns out they are pretty harmless and will probably stop invading once we dry out. It will mean a lot of sweeping up until they go off somewhere else but this is a first in all these years and it makes me wonder what new and interesting insect the island has in store for me.

See ya next week.