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Eoperipatus totoro

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Eoperipatus totoro Velvet Worm For Sale

Price range: $100.00 through $250.00

Captive-bred Eoperipatus totoro — the Vietnamese velvet worm, and the only species of velvet worm ever described from Vietnam. Onychophora is its own phylum, and captive-bred animals are almost unheard of: nearly everything that reaches the hobby is wild-collected. Offered as 1-inch babies.

SKU: TS-VW-001 Categories: , Brand:

Eoperipatus totoro is not a worm, not a caterpillar, and not an arthropod. It belongs to Onychophora — a phylum of roughly 237 living species that sits alongside the arthropods rather than within them, and which has persisted largely unchanged for something close to 500 million years. Keeping one is as close as the hobby gets to keeping a Cambrian body plan.

Why the captive-bred part matters

Velvet worms are notoriously difficult. The published husbandry comparison is to dart frogs, and the overwhelming majority of animals that appear in the trade are wild-collected from small, fragmented populations. These are captive bred. That is the entire point of the work — Onychophora survived half a billion years and are now threatened by deforestation, and a species that breeds reliably in captivity no longer depends on collection to stay in the hobby.

We record parentage and origin for our accessions in SpeciesVault, so the lineage behind an animal is documented rather than asserted.

The species

Described in 2013 by Oliveira and colleagues from specimens collected in Cát Tiên National Park, southern Vietnam. It was the first velvet worm formally described from Vietnam and, as of 2024, remains the only one. The name is a nod to Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro — the collectors had watched the film the evening they found the first specimen, and the many-legged Catbus reminded them of what they were looking at.

Peripatidae carry 23 pairs of legs in males and 24 in females. In the wild the species is found under stones and inside rotting wood in monsoon forest, chiefly during the November to June wet season.

How they hunt

Two glands beside the mouth fire jets of adhesive slime that harden within seconds, entangling prey at a distance before the animal moves in to feed. Very few animals have a projectile weapon at all; almost none use one like this.

Care

  • Humidity: constant and high. They have permeable skin and no waterproof cuticle, so they dehydrate fast. The substrate must never dry out — and must never go stagnant either.
  • Substrate: deep, moisture-retentive, with rotting hardwood and leaf litter to burrow through.
  • Temperature: cool to moderate tropical. Avoid heat.
  • Food: small live invertebrates — pinhead crickets, small roach nymphs, termites. Occasional rather than daily.
  • Reproduction: live-bearing. No eggs to incubate.
  • Experience: advanced. Not a first invertebrate.

Captive bred. Origin: Vietnam. Offered as 1-inch babies, singly or in threes.

Offered As

Single, 3 Count

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Care questions

What is a velvet worm, exactly?
Not a worm. Onychophora is its own phylum — roughly 237 living species, sitting beside the arthropods rather than inside them. They are soft-bodied predators with stubby lobopod legs, and the lineage has persisted largely unchanged for around 500 million years.
How do velvet worms catch prey?
They fire two jets of adhesive slime from glands beside the mouth, entangling prey from a distance before approaching to feed. The slime hardens within seconds. It is one of the very few projectile weapons in the animal kingdom.
What humidity do velvet worms need?
Constant high humidity, without exception. Velvet worms have permeable skin and no waterproof cuticle, so they desiccate quickly — in the wild they stay inside moist soil, rotting logs and leaf litter. The substrate must never dry out, and must never become waterlogged or stagnant either.
What do velvet worms eat?
Small live invertebrates — pinhead crickets, small roach nymphs, termites, springtails. They will not take prepared food. Feeding is occasional rather than daily; an adult may go a week or more between meals.
Do velvet worms lay eggs?
Peripatidae, the family this species belongs to, give birth to live young. There is no egg stage to incubate, and juveniles emerge as miniature versions of the adult.
Are velvet worms difficult to keep?
They are an advanced species. The published comparison is to dart frog husbandry — the humidity and ventilation balance is unforgiving and there is little margin for a substrate that dries. Best suited to keepers already running stable bioactive enclosures.

Further reading

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