Where is the giant African millipede legal?

a person shall not import into the District, possess... any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity, except the following

No invertebrate category exists in the permitted list, so every millipede, spider and scorpion is outside it. DC bans by omission rather than by name.

How this rule works: A closed list and one of the shortest in the country. Subsection (j)(1) bars importing, possessing, displaying, selling, trading or giving as a household pet "any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity", except seven categories: domestic dogs, domestic cats, domesticated rodents and rabbits, captive-bred common cage birds, non-venomous snakes and fish and turtles, ferrets, and racing pigeons. No lizard, no amphibian and no invertebrate fits any of them. Read from the D.C. Code rather than from a reproduction: the seven categories and their exact wording are what every cell in this jurisdiction turns on.

Any animal that is not on the lists of conditionally approved, restricted, or prohibited animals shall be prohibited until the board's review and determination for placement on one of these lists

No myriapod appears on any Hawaii list, so the default prohibition applies. Hawaii's concern with invertebrates is unusually close, given what introduced ones have already done to the islands.

How this rule works: The statute behind the lists. Subsection (c) is the default rule: anything not on the conditionally approved, restricted or prohibited list is prohibited until the board reviews it.

A person may not import into the state, possess, or sell any exotic wildlife unless: (a) the importation, possession, or sale of the exotic wildlife is allowed by law or commission rule

Montana defines wildlife to end with the phrase or other wild animal, which reaches an invertebrate, and it runs a white list rather than a black list. The statutory noncontrolled list has no myriapod, and the commission's rule at ARM 12.6.2205 clears two scorpions and one hermit crab and nothing else. Absence is the answer here, and the answer is no.

How this rule works: Montana runs a white list, which is unusual. § 87-5-705(1) says a person may not import, possess or sell any exotic wildlife unless it is allowed by law or commission rule, so an animal that appears on none of the three lists is not permitted rather than unregulated. § 87-5-706 is the statutory noncontrolled list and § 87-5-702 puts rodents, cats, dogs and Eurasian ferrets outside the scheme as domestic animals.

It is unlawful to introduce, multiply, possess, move, or release any arthropod, plant pest, biological control agent, noxious weed, or invasive plant regulated by the Department or the USDA except under permit issued by the Department unless a federal permit, PPQ 526, has been issued by the USDA with concurrence by the Department. No permit shall be issued nor concurrence with a federal permit, PPQ 526 made unless the Department has determined that the arthropod, plant pest, biological control agent, noxious weed, or invasive plant can be contained to prevent escape into the environment or that it will not pose a threat to agriculture, beneficial organisms, or the environment or become a public nuisance.

Florida answers this animal through its agriculture department, not FWC, and the wildlife chapters give no hint of it. 5B-57.004(1) makes it unlawful to possess any arthropod "regulated by the Department or the USDA" without a permit from the Division of Plant Industry, unless a federal PPQ 526 has already issued with the Department's concurrence. Archispirostreptus gigas moves interstate under exactly that federal permit, which is what brings it inside the sentence. The permit standard is containment: the Department must find the animal can be contained to prevent escape into the environment, which in practice means secure enclosure rather than a fee. Nothing in Chapter 68-5 or Chapter 68A-6 names it, so an entry resting on those chapters alone would read this as unrestricted.

How this rule works: The rule that catches invertebrates in Florida, and it belongs to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services rather than to FWC, which is why reading only the wildlife chapters gets this wrong. It makes it unlawful to possess "any arthropod ... regulated by the Department or the USDA" without a state permit, unless a federal PPQ 526 has issued with the Department's concurrence. The test is therefore federal as much as state: an arthropod USDA treats as a plant pest is caught, and one it does not is not. That splits the four invertebrates on this map, since the giant African millipede and the Madagascar hissing cockroach are both moved under PPQ 526 and a tarantula and a scorpion are not plant pests at all. Permits turn on containment: the Department must find the animal can be contained to prevent escape.

Nothing in this Part shall prohibit any person from possession of exotic animals or native animals of the class Insecta unless the animals of that class appear on the list of prohibited insects

The blanket invertebrate exemption is written for the class Insecta. A millipede is a myriapod, so on the literal wording it stays inside the definition of exotic animal and needs a permit, exactly like the tarantula and the scorpion.

How this rule works: One of the most species-specific schemes in the country. § 3.6 defines domestic animals, § 3.7 sets general prohibitions, § 3.9 governs permits, and § 3.17 is the long exempt list of animals that need no exotic animal possession permit. Anything not domestic, not native and not on the § 3.17 list needs a permit.

Invertebrate species listed as approved may be imported, possessed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, or released in Oregon without a permit from the Department. This applies only to stock collected within the continental United States. ... Giant African millipede, Archispirostreptus gigas (education, pet). ... Live invertebrates not on the list of approved invertebrates in any life stage may not be imported, possessed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, or released in the state unless a permit is first obtained from the Department.

Oregon runs two closed lists, and this animal is on the second one. ORS 496.004(19) defines wildlife as fish, shellfish, amphibians, reptiles, feral swine, wild birds and wild mammals, so a terrestrial arthropod is outside the Fish and Wildlife rules entirely; the Department of Agriculture picks it up instead under its plant pest authority. Named to the species and marked for pet use, alongside five other millipedes. Oregon is one of the few states that answers this animal by name in either direction. The condition is a real one and easy to miss: the clearance applies only to stock collected within the continental United States, so an animal imported from abroad needs a Department permit even though the species is approved. Nothing on this list is unregulated; an invertebrate absent from it may not be possessed at all without a permit. Oregon cities and counties may prohibit exotic animals by ordinance on top of state law, so check the municipality as well.

How this rule works: Oregon's second closed list, run by the Department of Agriculture and covering terrestrial invertebrates, which the Fish and Wildlife rules never reach. Subsection (3) bars possessing any live invertebrate not on the list without a Department permit, and subsection (1) limits the clearance to stock collected within the continental United States. The list is long and written to species with the intended use in brackets, and most pet-trade arachnids, myriapods and roaches are on it. It does not apply to marine or aquatic invertebrates.

The following species are exempt from Codes 09.02 (Possession Of Non-Native Wildlife In Captivity Restricted), 09.07 (Wildlife Breeder/Dealer Permit Required), and 09.10 (Wildlife Importation Permit Required)

No myriapod is named, and the list's scope is birds, mammals, reptiles and snakes, so nothing here settles it.

How this rule works: Species exempt from Codes 09.02 (possession of non-native wildlife restricted), 09.07 (breeder/dealer permit) and 09.10 (importation permit), named individually with binomials. Read it out of the codebook rather than the compiled PDF AGFC posted at agfc.com in 2022, which is the version that circulates as "the Arkansas list" and is two revisions behind: it lacks the rosy boa and the whole Anoline Lizards entry with its Arkansas-native exception. The compiled PDF says so itself, that the codebook lists "take precedence".

No person may import into Idaho... possess or otherwise hold in captivity... any live wildlife, except those animals exempted by Idaho Code or these rules, without a corresponding... captive possession... license/permit from the Department.

A millipede is animal life and is not on the conventional pets list, so the same literal reading applies. Idaho's deleterious exotic animal rules at IDAPA 02.04.27 do not mention myriapods either, so nothing prohibits one outright.

How this rule works: Section 010.06 defines conventional pets, which sit outside the wildlife permit regime. Unusually explicit: it names ferrets, hedgehogs and sugar gliders in the rule text.

"Nongame species" means any wildlife for which a legal hunting or trapping season has not been established in New Jersey or which has not been classified as an endangered species by statute or regulation of this State.

The same invertebrate gap as the tarantula: 4.5 reaches "nongame species", 4.1 defines that as any wildlife without a hunting season, and the enabling act's definition of wildlife ends in "or other wild animal", while the possession statute at N.J.S.A. 23:4-63.3(j) covers only vertebrates plus molluscs and crustaceans and no Division list names an invertebrate. Archispirostreptus gigas carries a separate federal problem regardless of how New Jersey reads its own rule, since USDA APHIS treats non-native millipedes as regulated organisms requiring a PPQ 526 permit to move interstate, which is the restriction that actually bites on this species in most states.

How this rule works: NJDEP's own courtesy copy of the whole of N.J.A.C. 7:25. Subchapter 4 starts at 7:25-4.1 and carries the definitions, the permit requirement at 4.2, the three species lists at 4.3, 4.4 and 4.8, the pet bar at 4.9(a)3 and 4.15(b), and the state endangered list at 4.13. The three list PDFs the Division hands out are extracts of this.

Any species of live non-domesticated animal not currently on the species importation list will be designated group IV until such time as another determination is made by the director.

The giant African millipede is not on the Director's list, and neither is any other terrestrial invertebrate: the roughly 1,300 rows are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Read literally the default clause would designate it group IV and bar it, since it is a live non-domesticated animal. Read in context that looks wrong, because the rule is titled importation of live non-domesticated animals, birds and fish, its scope speaks of wildlife species, and its machinery is veterinary inspection certificates and disease testing built for vertebrates. The regulation never uses the word invertebrate. Recorded unclear rather than banned, because the definition arguably reaches the animal and plainly was not written with it in mind.

How this rule works: The roughly 1,300 row table that 19.35.7 NMAC points at and that earlier research could not obtain. Every row gives a family, a scientific name, a common name and a roman numeral group. Group I is semi-domesticated and needs no importation permit. Group II is not known to be invasive or dangerous and needs a permit. Group III presents minimal or manageable concerns and needs a permit with specific provisions attached. Group IV is prohibited to the general public. The list is reached from the download page rather than a direct file URL, and the site needs a User-Agent header.