Three large African millipedes in the UK trade are sold with "olive" in the name, two of them are the same species under different labels, and one of them is not closely related to the others at all. Keepers order the wrong animal constantly. This is how to tell them apart, and it takes about five seconds once you know where to look.
Quick answer: look at the legs
Body colour is nearly useless here. All three are olive to bronze and they overlap. The legs settle it.
- Long legs banded white and brown, against an olive to coppery body: Telodeinopus aoutii. Sold as both the Cameroon Olive and the Ghana Speckled Leg. Same species, two trade names.
- Plain reddish-brown to orange legs, olive faintly striped body, greenish head shield: Analocostreptus gregorius, the African or East African Olive. A shorter, slimmer animal.
- Banding on the body rings rather than the legs, legs plain: the Olive Banded, Spirostreptus sp. 1. We do not stock it, but you will meet it elsewhere.
The banding is the diagnostic, and where the banding sits is the whole test. It is quicker and far more reliable than counting segments.
Telodeinopus aoutii: the Cameroon Olive and the Ghana Speckled Leg
These are one species. Telodeinopus aoutii (Demange, 1971), described originally as Onychostreptus aoutii and moved to Telodeinopus afterwards, which is why the authority sits in brackets. Family Spirostreptidae, order Spirostreptida, and one of eleven species in a genus that is entirely African.
We list two lines because they arrive from different sources and look slightly different in the tub. Our Cameroon animals run slimmer and lighter in colour than our Ghana stock. That is provenance and individual variation, not two species.
"Cameroon" is a trade label, not a range record. Demange's material came from Togo, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire, and the occurrence records for the species run to Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. It is a West African animal.
Of the big African species in the UK trade, this is one of the readiest to leave the floor. It climbs cork bark and branches and will sit up where you can see it rather than lying flat under the substrate the way the heaviest giants do. Give the enclosure height and it will use it, though only after dark: like all large spirostreptids it comes up as the light drops and spends the day down in the substrate or under bark. Any listing that calls it a daytime display animal is overselling.
Analocostreptus gregorius: the African Olive
If you bought this one before 2023 it came with a different genus on the label. Enghoff moved thirty-two nominal species out of Spirostreptus that year and this was among them, so the name that sat on shop listings for decades is now out of date. It is Analocostreptus gregorius, described by Attems in 1914, in a genus erected by Silvestri in 1910. Older trade listings sold it as the placeholder "Spirostreptidae sp. 2", now retired.
Both this and T. aoutii are Spirostreptidae, but they sit in different tribes: this one in Perustreptini, the Ghana and Cameroon animals in Spirostreptini. So they are cousins rather than siblings, which is worth knowing before you assume the care transfers wholesale.
It is a Central-southern African animal, recorded from Angola, which is the type locality, and from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The "East African" in the common name does not match the records.
Around 120 mm as an adult, slim for its length rather than bulky, and it spends more time visible in the top of the substrate than the burrowing giants do. We would stop short of calling it day-active. That reading traces to a single UK listing which a second shop then reproduced word for word.
See the African Olive Millipede.
Where the internet's numbers for these animals came from
This section is the reason to read this page rather than the first three search results.
The size and segment figures you will find everywhere for T. aoutii - 16 to 18 cm, 68 to 73 segments - all trace to one Polish keeping article. It reached Wikipedia and spread outward from there. It is not a measured series and it is not a published description. Treat it as a ballpark, which is how we quote it.
The same source is behind the widely repeated claim that males come out greener and females browner. Keepers do report it, and it is worth knowing before you look into a mixed group and think you have been sent two species. But it is a hobby observation, not a described character.
You will also see T. aoutii called the Kenyan millipede in one widely-copied source. That does not survive checking: there is no East African record for the genus at all, and a 2026 review of Ethiopian millipedes does not list it.
For A. gregorius, the "one to two years" figure circulating in the hobby looks very much like a lifespan that has ended up filed as a maturity time. We have no maturity figure we can stand behind, so we are not going to publish one.
None of this makes the animals harder to keep. It does mean that if two shops quote you an identical unusual number, you are probably reading one source twice.
Keeping either of them
The requirements are close but not identical, and the difference is worth respecting given they come from opposite ends of the continent.
| T. aoutii (Cameroon / Ghana) | A. gregorius (African Olive) | |
| Temperature | 22 to 28°C | 22 to 26°C |
| Humidity | 70 to 90% | 65 to 75% |
| Adult size | 16 to 18 cm, approximately | around 120 mm |
| Origin | West Africa | Angola and the DRC |
Substrate is the whole job. Large millipedes eat their bedding, so a deep base of well-rotted hardwood, flake soil and leaf litter is food and habitat at once. Aim for depth they can bury in completely, keep it moist rather than wet, and top it up rather than replacing it. Our millipede substrate guide covers the mix properly.
Add calcium and keep it available permanently. Cuttlebone or crushed limestone worked through the substrate does the job for animals that are rebuilding a long calcified exoskeleton at every moult.
Give height as well as depth for T. aoutii, since it will actually use it. Cork bark and branches, and a lid that fits.
Note that the humidity figures above are practical experience with these animals rather than physiology. The gradient rules we apply to isopods do not transfer to millipedes - the 65% detection threshold that governs woodlouse husbandry comes from work on Porcellio scaber, and there is no equivalent measurement for any of these species.
Which should you buy?
For a first large African millipede, take the T. aoutii, from either line. It is more forgiving on temperature, it is the one that climbs and shows itself, and we usually have more of it. If you want the animal that looks most striking against dark substrate, the banded legs are what you are buying.
Take the African Olive if you want something slimmer and less common, and you can hold the slightly cooler, slightly drier end of the range.
See the full millipede collection, or our guide to the best beginner millipedes if you are starting from scratch.
Frequently asked questions
Are the Cameroon Olive and the Ghana Speckled Leg the same millipede? Yes. Both are Telodeinopus aoutii. The names refer to the source of the stock, not to different species, and our two lines differ only in build and shade.
How do I tell an olive millipede apart quickly? Look at the legs. Banded white and brown means T. aoutii. Plain orange or reddish-brown means A. gregorius. Banding on the body rings instead of the legs means you have the Olive Banded, a third animal again.
Is the African Olive really from East Africa? No. The records are Angolan and Congolese. The common name is trade convention and it is misleading.
How big do they actually get? Honestly, we do not know precisely. The circulating figures come from a single keeping article rather than a measured series. Expect a large animal, expect females to run larger than males, and be sceptical of any source quoting a precise range with confidence.
Are they active during the day? No. Both are nocturnal, and claims to the contrary trace to individual shop listings that other shops copied.
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