Brandon's Ballin' Box!

A few months ago I got in a big old box of bugs from Brandon Maines at Magnificent Beasts, mostly stuff I've previously had and either failed with, and some stuff I still have but wanted booster groups of just to be safe. Namely these species:

Blattidae sp. "Philippines"

Cariblatta lutea "Brooksville"

Cristarmadillidium muricatum

Eublaberus marajoara

Eurycotis opaca "Jaruco"

Princisia vanwaerebeki "Black & White"

Pseudoglomeris tarsalis 

Troglodillo sp. "Green Spot"

Therea bernhardti

Therea regularis

Plus, both Brandon and Junior Marquez sent me the very last of their failing Pseudoglomeris aerea colonies. I had sent the last of mine to Brandon earlier this year to see if they'd do better for him, unfortunately they did not... and Junior's weren't much better off. So, all in all I've got one adult male, one subadult female and two presub females... I think the three big parts of my previous failure with this species were:

1. Too much ventilation in their enclosure considering how low my ambient air humidity is. This caused dehydration, but keeping the enclosure more humid caused their bark and too much of the substrate to become moist to the touch, which these loath. Ideally you want high air humidity and low surface moisture with this species, so limiting my ventilation a bit more in the future will be necessary to work with this species. 
2. Improper hide choices also likely stressed my colony out, I used too flat of bark hides, without enough nooks and crannies for nymphs to hide and feel safe in. This time I'm using cork bark for hides, which seems to be the best hide choice for Perisphaerinae in general.
3. Poor temperature control, especially in the Summer. I think I let my culture get too warm last Spring/early Summer, due to space constraints in my last place of living. Now that I've moved into a new house though, I should have no issues keeping them at the proper temps year round.

Taking all these issues into consideration, I'm hoping I can salvage this colony, and keep this species going in culture. 🤞 

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Now, onto the few species he sent me that I've actually never kept before! First off, we have Ergaula cf. silphoides "Hobby Stock". Formerly labeled as "Ergaula pilosa", as we covered in a previous post, this species is not true E.pilosa, and is most likely E.silphoides (with the previously rumored locality data for this stock of "Malaysia" likely being inaccurate). But I wanted to see in person to confirm this suspicion, especially since I've struggled to find photos that very clearly show the morphological features I'm looking for.

Anyways, I've got then set up in a well ventilated enclosure with an inch or two of coconut fiber substrate, which I'm keeping two thirds humid, one third dry. I'm feeding them dog food and leaf litter for the staple diet, and am keeping them at 75-85F°.

Here are some pics of the fuzzy nymphs:

Here's hoping for adults within the next several months. 🙂

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He also sent some Anthrenus sp. larvae from his former home in Osceola Mills, PA. Initially he thought they were Dermestes lardarius larvae, which I was quite excited to keep, but on arrival I was instantly able to tell they were not Dermestes larvae, but rather Anthrenus instead. No idea which species it is, but nevertheless, happy to now have two different strains (and hopefully two different species) of this genus in my collection now.

Here are some pictures:

Hopefully they'll mature soon and establish a colony with little difficulty. 😃

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And lastly, he sent some Porcellionides cf. virgatus "Miami, FL", which is in the same species complex of "Porcellionides" as the sp. "Big Pine Key" and "Everglades" strains. I think there's only two other strain of this Florida complex in culture that I don't yet have, so I'm getting closer to having them all. 😂 These "Miami" are actually prettier than I thought they were, definitely a strain that looks better in person than in photos.

As with the other two lines of this complex I keep, I have this Miami strain in a well ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of coconut fiber substrate, topped with bark hides and leaf litter. I'm keeping most of the enclosure humid, and at around 75-80F°. In addition to the leaf litter they are being offered dog food for their diet.

Here are some pictures of them:

Definitely a neat isopod with some variable coloration, hopefully they'll breed as well for me as the "BPK" and "Everglades" lines have!

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

Pesticide Woes

A few months ago, I made a mistake that unfortunately resulted in the loss of several colonies of mine, many of which persisted for a while afterwards but were apparently rendered sterile or minimally reproductive by this mistake... 😩

It was a one time occurance that screwed over several of my roaches and beetles... Basically, I had placed a large portion of my bug collection beside my bed, for about a month in the hotel I currently live in. I started to notice after a month though, that EVERYTHING on level with the mattress started showing evident pesticide poisoning, which almost solely affected the females in all these colonies, but some developing male nymphs were affected as well. Apparently, hormonal pesticides that target females are commonly used against bedbugs, which are obviously a concern for most hotels and something this one likely preemptively treats for...

Which on the one hand is nice, because hey, no bedbugs! But on the other hand, my dumb ass put half my collection up against a bed which had obviously been sprayed with some sort of normal pesticides. 🙃 This explains why only the species against the mattress were affected. I've since moved everything to the opposite side of the room, and no more cultures have been affected since then... But yeah, did a number on several of my species sadly.

The species that were definitely affected and subsequently lost were:

Anallacta methanoides

Balta notulata

Eurycotis sp. "Venezuela"

Drymaplaneta semivittata

Hemithyrsocera palliata

Neostylopyga propinqua "Bloody Bullets"

Pyrophorus noctilucus

Rhabdoblatta parvula

Rhabdoblatta rustica

Species that may have been at least partially affected, that I also lost/sent away.

Bantua robusta (I haven't had much luck with this species over the past couple years to begin with, however I noticed a significant decline in the health of my females after being placed next to the poisoned mattress)

Blattidae sp. "Philippines" (they stopped laying ooths for me, though they did not have female nymph die offs, so I'm not sure if they were actually poisoned or not)

Hemithyrsocera vittata (I seem to suck with this species in general, however they were doing fine and laying ooths, until I put them alongside the bed, at which time they started crashing pretty hard...)

Hormetica sp. "Colombia" (this one's a real stretch, mine haven't bred yet, but they all seem healthy, no random prolapses, aborted ooths or premature females deaths as I usually observed in species that were pesticide poisoned. But they were on level with the mattress, so can't rule it out either until mine breed).

Neostylopyga sp. "Papua New Guinea" (however, literally every one that was sent to me was an adult, and most of the females seemed pretty old to begin with, so that could have been the reason they failed to reproduce as well).

My Capucina patula, Schizopilia fissicollis, and Phortioeca sp. "Ecuador" all started to tank for me around this time as well, however the Phortioeca never did well for me to begin with, the Capucina died completely regardless of sex, and the Schizopilia have been doing fine since I sent them off to a friend, so I kinda doubt the pesticides had anything to do with their failure in my care, and the timing was merely coincidence. Same goes for my Blattidae sp. "Thailand", which I've now sent off, they weren't breeding for me but pretty much instantly started laying ooths for one of the friends I sent them to.

There may have been other species lost that were affected by the pesticides as well that I've forgotten, but these are all the ones I can think of. Thankfully not too many species were lost, but many of the ones that were were pretty hard hitting. 😢 A very unfortunate occurrence for sure, one I've at least learned from. Thankfully I have reacquired several of the species I've lost, like the Anallacta and Drymaplaneta, and have plans to get more of them back soon. But yeah, just wanted to get this out in the open, to explain the loss of several species this past year.

That does it for this post, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time.

Bunch o' Blattids

June Rare Roach Package Series Pt. 1/3

Next post in series »»»

Well, I've just gotten 7 new species of roaches in trade from a friend of mine, who was kind enough to send me live roaches in exchange for some dead stock (which I am still in the process of gathering and preserving for him). He generously sent out his end of the trade first, and now I've got some awesome new species for the US hobby to showcase! 😁

First off, let's show my favorite of the new Blattids I got, Blattidae sp. "Philippines". These are unidentified but remind me of Dorylaea, maybe Periplaneta. 🤔 They aren't all that large, a little over an inch in length, both sexes have short wings and are dark brown. Hatchlings are black but they quickly lighten up to an orange brown color with a few molts, with minimal patterning. Despite their size and simplistic look, I really like this species for some reason. They're just a nice, basic roach.

And you know, (rant incoming), I kinda miss that aspect of the hobby a bit. I do tend to gravitate towards flashier species myself, but I try to balance it out and have a fair variety of more simple looking roach species as well. But as a hobby, I feel like we are moving more and more towards only keeping super pretty or large species of roaches, and everyone wants the next shiny metallic or otherwise colorful species to enter the hobby. But little to no fanfare is being given to these more "roachy" roaches that enter the hobby, and that saddens me a bit. I feel like I've seen a definite decline in the number of roach keepers wanting to collect every new species that enters the hobby, no matter how "boring" they may be. Each species has it's own unique look, morphology, care, etc., and that's what makes this hobby fun to me, not just collecting all the super pretty ones. Gotta balance it out a bit ya know? And lately it just doesn't seem like a lot of people are doing that anymore, which sucks.

Anyways, state of the hobby rant aside... 😅 I've got my couple dozen mixed individuals of this species housed in a moderately ventilated container with an inch or so of coconut fiber as the substrate, with bark, cardboard rolls and leaf litter as hides. I'm keeping them humid and warm, at 75-80F° or so. For food I'm offering dog food and fruits.

Here are some pics of an adult female and a large nymph:

Adult female

Subadult nymph

Very pretty species IMO, hopefully they'll breed well for me and will become established here in the US hobby soon. 🤞

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Next up, another short winged species, Blattidae sp. "Thailand". Both sexes have very short, square shaped wings, and kinda look like larger, lankier Blatta orientalis in some ways. Their cerci are much broader than in Blatta though, and adults are almost twice the mass of the adult Blatta I've seen. No idea what genus these are in, but they're definitely quite neat for sure!

I've got my dozen or so mixed individuals in a moderately ventilated container with cardboard rolls, bark and leaf litter hides. I'm keeping them humid and relatively warm, around 75F°. For food I'm offering dog food and fruits.

There was only one adult in the group, and sadly she has had a bit taken out of one of her tegmina. But oh well, she'll have to do until I can get pictures of a fresher adult. 😅 Here are some pics of her and a medium nymph:

Adult female

Nymph

A neat species for sure, and they are now the largest Blattids I keep (which isn't saying that much, but still). 😄

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Lastly, we have these oddities, Neostylopyga sp. "Papua New Guinea". I am actually unsure whether adults are completely wingless, or have tiny vestigial tegmina or not... Guess time will tell, I have some rather large ones with no wings that might be nymphs or adults... 🤷😂 This species is jet black, and they kinda look like mini Eurycotis lixa to me. I'm thinking of calling them "Black Bullet Roaches", since the related Neostylopyga propinqua goes by the name "African Bullet roach"... 🤔 

I've got my 10 or so individuals housed in a well ventilated container with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate, with cardboard rolls, leaf litter and bark hides. I'm keeping them humid and warm, around 75-80F°. For food I'm offering dog food and fruits.

Here are some pictures of one of my largest individuals:

Here's hoping they do well for me, I'll be sure to take some pictures of an adult if it turns out they have small wings when mature... 😂

EDIT 6/27: Well, this pictured individual has started laying ooths... So it is indeed an adult, adults of this species have no wings whatsoever. 😄

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