Let's jump into a great update though, I have another male Macropanesthia rhinoceros finally! 😍 This male comes through the kindness of my friend Toan Hoang, who just straight up bought me a male from Mo Fauna. HUGE thanks to Toan for that, and props to Mo Fauna for great packing and a beautiful, healthy male. 😁
Here are some pictures of the chad:
Hopefully he'll get both my females mated, and then hopefully they'll give birth within the next several months. 🤞
Now onto a bummer update... SOMEHOW, my female Metallyticus splendidus got herself wedged UNDER one of the thin cork board hides in the breeding enclosure, and damaged herself fatally as a result. Words fail me honestly, none of the males in that same setup met that fate, I'm honestly not sure how the HELL she got in that position in the first place. Either way, f*ck mantids. 🤣 I'm so done keeping Mantodea, I will leave that to others more experienced in that fields, and stick to keeping almost any other invert family.
On the trend of bummer updates, my adorable Daihiniini sp. babies all died, and I'm honestly not sure why. They seemed to just refuse most foods, and those they had some interest in (namely prekilled inverts and artificial pollen) they seemingly lost interest in and then wasted away. Very odd, and honestly I'm still not sure if the diet was actually the problem, or if some other factor was causing them to stress and die. But I tried a wide variety of substrates and humidity levels, and nothing seemed to work. Oh well, maybe I'll get to try these another day, though I have no idea what I'd do differently.
Here are some meh quality phone pics I got of the first instars, before they all kicked the bucket:
Too bad they didn't do well for me, considering the babies were ADORABLE. 😭
I also lost my Ceuthophilus agassizii colony. Seems I always lose them about 4-5 gens into culture, I feel like they may actually need a winter diapause in order to keep them going for longer than that. I guess I'll test this theory out with my next colony, I'll just have to wait until Spring/Summer and collect some some more (I've literally found them in my neighborhood, so this shouldn't be a problem).
OK, onto more positive news, I FINALLY got babies from my Panesthia angustipennis angustipennis "Sabah, Malaysia - Gold Winged Form"!!! 😁 Took like 8 months, but hopefully after this lengthy initial incubation, future broods will take significantly less time to develop.
I've also been getting Salganea raggei babies over thos past year, don't know if I ever updated the blog about that. But, there it is lol.
Got some Eucorydia westwoodi weirdness going on... After only 4 months of development, I've started getting new adults. 😳 And the majority of my remaining nymphs are subs or presubs now. This is crazy fast growth, and the adults emerged before I got to put the colony into diapause. SO, I have isolated said early bloomers to their own culture, to see if I can just straight up break the diapause requirement for this species. That would make these even easier to culture and more accessible to a wider audience of breeders, so hopefully it can be done.
In more Eucorydia news, I have started getting E.forceps babies, and more fresh adult pairs as well. 😁 So, the colony is well on it's way to establishing itself, which is great. Another notch in my belt for successful breeding of this genus.
My Cubaris sp. "Amber" are doing quite well, breeding rather prolifically for me, and my line bred morph project is going... slowly. 😆 I am getting more and more of the very pale striped individuals, but still a lot of normal dark striped ones as well. The end goal is to get very faintly striped individuals breeding true, not sure how long that's gonna take or if it's even possible TBH.
Anyways, here are some pics of a group of them:
Very cute and easy to breed species, they just like a good amount of heat compared to some other spp..
Lastly, my Eupolyphaga sinensis "White Eye" colony is doing phenomenal. So much so that I really want to get the normal form as well, since I know this species does well for me, and it seems normal E.sinensis are on the brink of dying out of culture here in the US.
Here are a couple pics of some adult females:
Well, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
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