Desert Millipede Set Up & Research

The desert millipede species i purchased is Orthoporus ornatus otherwise known as the sonoran desert millipede or the texas desert millipede. It is sometimes known as the giant desert millipede also.

If you’ve watched my previous video, you will know I love all things Sonoran Desert. So I have ordered some desert millipede from that area, a species that no one has been able to breed in captivity…. This is going to need quite a bit of research. And that’s coming up.
Okay so this species was listed on the spider shop UK as gold millipedes, wild caught from the US. I was aware that Orthoporus ornatus was native to the Sonoran desert, however I wasn’t aware of the different phases that occur according to location. I am now aware that the “gold phase” I have is a Texas locality and not the Sonoran/Arizona locality I ideally want. Which is a brown colour.
As far as I am aware there is only one successful breeding of Orthoporus ornatus but I can’t find a written account anywhere. Im left to do some research to develop my own tactics.
I started with just searching for Orthoporus ornatus breeding and that let me to a thread on arachnoboards from 2013. The basic summary of what I found was people discussing how the species cannot be bred and potential theories as to why. There are some interesting thoughts about the monsoon season playing a part in breeding as well as organic materials needed for wrapping the eggs.

A search on google scholar gives me lots of results from the 70s.
I found an interesting piece on a year long summary of their life. The basic summary is that they emerge during the desert monsoon season around mid may. And then feed on a number of detritus including prickly pear desert cactus, a pad I later provide them.
In late summer around the end of the desert monsoon season the desert millipedes return to their fossorial lifestyle after eating almost 1.5x their body mass in food. Inside their burrows they enter a state of dormancy to survive the dormant season. The desert millipedes lay dormant using their fat reserves to survive until a month before the rains arrive, they undergoe their annual moult before emerging with the rains and the whole cycle starts again.
Its unclear at what point reproduction takes place but its my hunch that mating takes place during the summer period and eggs laid waiting to hatch and emerge the following year. Perhaps they hatch a month before the rains.
With that in mind this is how I set them up.