"Masoala" portentosa Babies, Ammopelmatus Update, & Random Pictures!

Well I forgot to mention this in an earlier post, but two weeks ago, one of my Gromphadorhina portentosa "Masoala" gave birth! 😁 Oddly though I think it was a brood from my one sickly female, as I found her dead the same day. I'm pretty sure she actually aborted most of her ooth a few weeks prior and was acting a bit off from there on out. Thankfully she apparently still had brood in her, gave birth to about 15 of them, and then died. But the rest of my females are all healthy, and most are SUPER plump, so I'm expecting a lot more big broods soon (without the random post-birth mortality... 😅). And the offspring that were born are all healthy, and most have molted once or twice already.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs, plus one of the other adult females (showing off more "normal" coloration for this strain, compared to the "cherry red" female I showed off in my last post about this species:

Small nymphs

Adult female

So glad these have bred for me already, and hopefully there's a LOT more nymphs where these came from! 🤞

---

Next up, some unfortunate Ammopelmatus sp. "Boise, ID" news. It would seem that heating my females to get them to catch up to my males in growth was a very bad idea, apparently heat, even coupled with high ventilation, causes a lot of issues with them, and all but one of my females died before maturing, with the last female not looking so good either. I've moved her back to a cooler location alongside my adult males, but I'm skeptical that she will make it. Poor decision on my part, but if I had just left them at room temperature they wouldn't have caught up to my males anyways... So seems like I may have been doomed to fail with the ratio of nymphs I found.

This is all particularly unfortunate, considering that now that all my males have matured, I now know that adult males of this species look pretty dang cool! They have long gangly legs, and VERY long spines on their hind tibiae that I've not noticed on other Ammopelmatus spp. males I've kept.

Here are some pictures of one of the mature males:

Hopefully my last female pulls through and matures in time to mate with one of my males, but I'm not holding my breath. At least I got to see adult males in person.

---

My Alphitobius diaperinus are doing great, and I just added them to my For Sale list, but realized that despite having kept them previously years ago, I've never gotten decent pictures of them... So, for the completionist in me, and for my FS list, finally got around to getting some pictures of a group of adults. 😂

Here are the pics:

About time haha, still no pictures of the larvae, but meh, good enough. 😅

---

Lastly, my Trachelipus rathkii "Ada County, ID" are also doing great, but again I've never gotten pictures of just normal grey rathkii... and I just added these to my FS list. So once again, for the sake of getting pictures of all the stuff I keep, and for my FS list, I took some pictures of then. 😆

Here they are, in all their glory:

I like the variation this species displays, they're a simple but interesting isopod IMO. Very intolerant of drying out though, and I only find them in very moist areas in the wild.

Well, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Amazing Spring Idaho Finds!

Well, I'm PLANNING on this being my last year living here in Idaho, however while collecting in Boise this April, I found some awesome inverts, including a couple that were on my "Idaho Find Bucket List". 😄 Either due to dumb luck or fate, my last year here in Idaho will probably be among the best in terms of inverts I found and collected. 😂

First off, I found not one, not two, but NINE Scolopendra polymorpha! 😃 Well, I should probably put "Scolopendra polymorpha" in quotes, since a revision of the North American Scolopendra based on phylogenetic analysis will be coming out soon, and apparently the Idaho population and some northern California populations will no longer be considered the same species as true S.polymorpha (and may not even belong in Scolopendra). In any case, the population here in ID is quite blue compared to more southern strains, and they're quite stunning in person. 🥰 I found a very small juvenile here nearly ten years ago, but accidentally smashed it while collecting it, and never found another one... Until now. 

Oddly, I mostly found them under VERY small rocks, in scrubland habitat. A lot of these rocks were lying beside rabbit burrows, and most of the centipedes had to curl up a bit to even fit underneath the rocks. Yet, I found almost none of them underneath larger rocks.

I've got them housed in deli cups with thin layers of coconut fiber and sand mixed as the substrate. Keeping them at room temps, and am keeping them semi-humid. Been feeding them random live and prekilled inverts, they don't seem to be very picky at all.

Here are some pictures of the first one I found:

Pictures just don't do them justice, they're so blue in person! 😍 These are also still juveniles though, only a couple inches long at the most currently, think they've still got quite a bit of growing to do before they're sexually mature.

---

Secondly, I found TEN Ammopelmatus sp. Jerusalem crickets!!! 😁 I knew these occured in my area of Idaho, but after a decade of living here and searching for them, I've never seen even a trace of them! Again, I curiously found these mostly under rather small rocks, along the sides of rabbit burrow mounds. Though I did find a few under large rocks far away from any rabbit burrows as well.

I believe I found 3-4 females and 5-6 males, all of which are nymphs. Sadly, most of the males are quite a bit ahead of the females in terms of growth, so syncing them up for breeding may be a pain... This will be my third attempt at breeding this genus I REALLY hope I'm successful this time. 😅 Pretty sure I just need to use a clay/coco fiber mix, maybe with a bit of sand mixed in for the females to oviposit in, and I'll finally have worked out all the kinks to breeding these... But, we'll see.

I've got them all housed in moderately ventilated deli cups with 1-2 inches of coco fiber as the substrate, and am keeping them humid at room temperature. For food I'm offering dog food and live/prekilled inverts.

Here are some pics of one:

These are very much your stereotypical Jerusalem crickets in terms of coloration, I don't know how big they'll get, but I doubt they'll be quite as large as the species from "Long Beach, CA" I kept in the past. Still, definitely awesome to have finally found some myself, and hopefully I can finally breed this genus, and then get to work on culturing the more pretty species. 😁

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉