New Pods & Some Roach Updates!

I got a group of Cubaris sp. "Amber Firefly - LCF" in trade with Alyssa from Forests of Asgard, was very happy with the counts and health of the specimens on arrival, and am glad to report they have blossomed into a full on breeding colony as of now! 😊 This is one of those species that has a bit of a silvery sheen to their exoskeleton (especially when they dry out a little bit), which is hard to capture on camera, but needless to say they look a lot prettier in person!

I have mine set up in a well ventilated container with an inch or so of leftover substrate from some other breeding project I've forgotten (so a mix of coco fiber, sand and I think a little clay too), topped with coco coir chunks, bark and leaf litter. I am keeping them fairly humid, at around 75-85F, and am offering dog food and fish food pellets as their supplemental diet, as well as some calcium carbonate chunks.

Here are some pics of them:

A beautiful species, I would like to acquire some of the other color forms in the future as well. Glad they are doing well for me, hopefully they will continue to do so!

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At some point last year I got some Cubaris sp. "Black Bear" from my buddy Ty at Ty Dye Exotics, and I keep forgetting to post about them! They are a cute, velvety species that seems fairly easy to rear and breed, though a bit slow growing/breeding. They are part of an undescribed genus that also includes some other species like sp. "Kayson Honey".

I have them in a moderately ventilated setup with an inch or so of coco fiber and coco coir chunks as the substrate, topped with bark pieces and leaf litter. I am keeping them humid, at around 75F, and am feeding them dog food and calcium carbonate chunks as their supplemental foods.

Here are some photos of 'em!

A very underrated species IMO, these and the Amber Fireflies are now on my For Sale list BTW, if anyone is interested in adding some to their own collections. 😜

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My Asiopus minimus are doing well and have exploded in numbers. They are evidently a very easy to keep species, not sensitive to crowding much at all. 

Here's a single picture I took of a glob of adults:

Glad these have done so well for me, another species to add to my ever growing assortment of Tenebrionid colonies.

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My Cariblatta minima have also been doing quite well, and I really don't have anything noteworthy to add as an update. I just got a somewhat decent picture of a bunch of them chowing down on dog food recently and figured I'd post it here.

A neat little species that I think a lot more people should keep.

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My Byrsotria rothi have all not only matured, but have bred as well. I can't believe I never kept these before, these are SO underrated! The males have some neat morphology and wing shape, and I love the dark reds the females have on their abdomen. 😍

Here are some pictures of an adult pair:

Female

Male

Pair

This genus in general is so underrated, but this species in particular is ridiculously slept on! I hope to see more hobbyists keeping them in the future, along with some of the other "forgotten" hobby staples that have sort of fallen into obscurity now with the influx of more "interesting" species that have entered culture as of late.

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I moved my Paranauphoeta formosana to a larger 5 gallon bin recently, and weirdly they've been having a lot of die off in the process. I think the sudden change of environment, combined with slightly less ventilation and higher humidity in that setup may have been to blame. I have since let the setup dry out some more, though I may also add some more ventilation soon. The die offs seem to have slowed down though, and I've seen several litters born lately, so I'm not too worried ATM.

Anyways, got some group photos of some adults recently:

It's so dang hard to get even somewhat decent photos of this species, the adults are SO SKITTISH. They are much prettier in person than in photos IMO, these have also fallen into obscurity recently I feel, despite their attractive patterning and former popularity.

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

UGH, MITES!!!! & an Alobates pensylvanica Update

My collection is experiencing a small mite crisis, there is this small, round, red mite species that seems similar to grain mites in habits, but more damaging to my small Ectobiid species than any mite I have previously encountered. 😩 I am not exactly sure where they came from, I'm thinking they came in with my Dorylaea orini though, as I saw them in their enclosure first.

So, I've had to carefully re-house the infested species, and throw out their old enclosures too, as the mites seem pretty resistant to my sterilization methods. Luckily, I think I've nipped this problem in the bud, they aren't in many of my enclosures, and only seem to do well when there is a buildup of leftover food and/or a lack of a thriving springtail colony. Hopefully once I've finished cleaning out the last enclosures, the mites will be gone for good.

The species that were infested with these mites are Dorylaea orini, (which I've moved to a larger enclosure now), Cariblatta minima, Alobates pensylvanicus, Therea olegrandjeani, Balta notulata, and a pair of Oniscus asellus. The only cultures I still have to de-mite are my T.olegrandjeani, and B.notulata.

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Speaking of Alobates pensylvanica, I suppose I may as well give you all an update on them. A couple of months ago I rehoused them to a larger enclosure, thinking the larvae would appreciate it, and the adults would lay more eggs, (all of the egg clutches they produced had started to mold over in their old setup). However, the new enclosure had a lot more ventilation than their previous one, and I underestimated how fast the substrate would dry out.

So, within a few days the enclosure got really dry, and most of the larvae died off. I re-hydrated the substrate, but that didn't seem to help all that much, and the adults didn't seem inclined to lay any more eggs either. So, I moved the adults back to a smaller enclosure, with moist substrate and less ventilation. I dug through the big enclosure and only found one larva unfortunately, which I moved to a small deli cup with crushed rotten wood as the substrate.

The adults are looking pretty ragged now, and I'm not sure that I'll be able to successfully rear the larva up to adulthood, so it looks like I've failed at breeding this species. 😢 Oh well, maybe I'll try again one day, we'll see! At least now I know that this species hates dryness, at least as larvae, and adults like to lay eggs in crevices, like in between bark pieces, or in between the enclosure walls and the substrate.

Well, that's going to do it for today, I hope everyone enjoyed this post, will see you all next time! 😉

Deropeltis Dilemmas & Other Invertebrate Woes...

Happy December everyone! ❄ ⛄ Unfortunately, it hasn't been the best December for my collection so far, but hopefully that will change as the month goes on.

First off, several of my Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" oothecae have molded over, when opened the contents revealed brown mush. I'm having flashbacks of my failure to breed Dorylaea orini, as the same thing happened to their oothecae. 😞 However, it's come to my attention that I may very well be the last person in the USA keeping this species, so if I lose these, who knows when I or any other US hobbyist will be able get them again!? 😱

I've taken all of the oothecae out of the main enclosure, and moved them to a 24 oz container with good ventilation, a thin layer of almost dry coconut fiber as the substrate, and bark bits and pieces of moss here and there, so if/when they hatch, the nymphs will have places to hide until I find them. I've also thrown in some Sinella curviseta springtails, because despite all my complaints about them, they do help in keeping mold levels down.

The container is on top of a heat cable, well, the heat cable is wrapped in newspaper and the container is on top of another container's lid, just to make sure the ooths don't overheat or dry out completely, like they probably would if I put the enclosure directly on the heat cable. I've been misting them lightly a couple times daily, as the heat still does dry things out quite a bit, and some of the ooths were starting to dimple a bit, (a sign of dehydration).

So far things are looking OK, I really hope at least a couple of these oothecae hatch. Unfortunately my adults are getting old, and most of the ooths my females are laying are either tiny or really deformed looking. Will keep my fingers crossed for some successful oothecae hatchings, that would be a great Christmas present! 😁

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Well, all but one of my Pystalla horrida nymphs have matured now, which is great! Sadly though, one adult came out with a completely bent and deformed front leg, and a deformed antenna. I doubt it can catch prey by itself now, so I'm hoping it will share meals with it's brethren, (which I've seen the nymphs do several times), otherwise I'll have to tong-feed it, and I rarely have success tong feeding things, (IDK if my hands shake too much or something, I've had a few predatory inverts attack what I have in the tongs, but they never seem to grab it...).

Also, none of my adults have fed yet, which worries me too, so there's that... I've got a few ideas on how to fix that situation though, so I'll keep you posted on them!

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My Pasimachus sp. "Arizona" pupa has eclosed, just in time too, since the day before it did there was a little mold growing on it! 😮 At first, the adult looked perfect, the elytra are nice and smooth, there are no dents anywhere, all that was left was for the elytra to finish inflating and cover the rest of the exposed abdomen. Buuuuuuut, they never did. 😑 I am not sure why, but the elytra do not fit the abdomen at all, and there is quite a bit of abdomen left exposed. Really sucks, wish I knew what I could have done to prevent it.

Anyway, here are some pictures of it, first as a teneral adult, then with the finished coloration:

You can kinda see a little wrinkled, dimpled spot near the end of the elytral seam, I think that's where the elytra stopped inflating for whatever reason, and since that spot didn't inflate completely, they failed to cover the rest of the abdomen. Oh well, at least this deformity doesn't seem to hinder it's ability to survive much, it just ate a mealworm the other day.

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Lastly, I cleaned out my Cariblatta lutea enclosure, since they don't seem to be doing all that great, and there were a lot of dead bodies in that enclosure due to a previous accident. So, I cleaned it all out, put in some new substrate, (no sand this time), new hides, etc., so hopefully they'll start doing better now!

Also, my main Cariblatta minima colony just seems to be going downhill, doesn't look like they will beat the mites. So, over the next few weeks I'll be periodically removing a few roaches at a time, putting them in a quarantine deli cup with paper towel as the substrate to make sure no mites came with them, and will then put them in with the small group of adults I separated from the main enclosure a little while ago. Then, when all of the roaches are gone, I'll thoroughly clean out and sterilize the main enclosure, and place them back in it, since it is larger than the enclosure I'm currently keeping the mite-free C.minima in.

Anyway, that is going to do it for today's post, thank you everyone for reading, will see you all soon! 😉

Cariblatta Crashes & Pystalla Problems...

Well, I've been having a stroke of bad luck with my Cariblatta cultures lately. Luckily it doesn't seem like I'll be losing either species from my collection any time soon, but their numbers have been diminished a bit...

I forgot to feed my Cariblatta lutea a few weeks ago, just one missed feeding, but in the three days they were without food, I lost about half of my adult population, and quite a few nymphs too. 😢 It was quite a stupid mistake, I simply took their moldy food out of their enclosure when it came time to do maintenance, but forgot to put some new food in. Luckily the remaining individuals seem to be doing well, and I still have a couple dozen or so individuals, but it really sucks, because my culture was undergoing it's first big population boom...

Meanwhile, my Cariblatta minima culture has become infected with some sort of small, round, dark red mites, and they seem to be affecting their overall health quite a bit. Most of the remaining Cariblatta are too small to pick out individually without also collecting some of the mites, so I was only able to pick out a few adult females and two adult males, along with one subadult female, and I have moved them to their own, mite free enclosure, in the hopes of establishing a new colony in case the old one dies off completely.

I also added lots of Sinella curviseta springtails to the mite infested culture, in the hopes of them out-competing the mites and saving the Cariblatta minima, and I added more hides for the Cariblatta and springtails as well. Maybe the mites will die off and the roaches will bounce back, we'll see, for now though I am keeping them in my bathroom, far from my other enclosures, so the mites don't spread to the rest of my collection.

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My Pystalla horrida subadults are being SO picky when it comes to feeding, they are refusing to go after prey in the standard enclosures I have them housed in, so I've been trying different enclosures, hide types, hide placements, and food types in an attempt to get them to feed. So far I've had no luck, and it's driving me up the walls with frustration... I got these to help relieve me of stress by getting rid of excess roaches, not to create more stress! 😩

I really don't know why they won't eat anymore, they fed just fine for me on a wide variety of prey items up until now. I suspect they want a specific type of hide to perch from and swoop down on their prey, but nothing I've done seems to be adequate for them... Hopefully I can get them to start eating normally again soon, I really want to be successful in breeding these beasties!

Oh well, I think that's gonna do it for this rant of a post, hopefully the next one will be a little more upbeat! Thank you all for reading, will see you next time!

A Few Small Roach Updates

My Arenivaga cf. genitalis are doing very well, my female is really plumping up, I assume because she is gravid. :) Haven't witnessed her laying an ootheca yet, but hopefully she will soon, or has already done so when I wasn't looking.

Anyway, I took a couple pictures of her the other day, here they are:

Here's hoping I'll have as much success with breeding these as I have with my A.bolliana! :)

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Lately my Cariblatta minima haven't been doing so well, lots of adults have been dying, and some of the live adults and nymphs were biting their antennae and acting sickly. I rehoused them to a new enclosure with fresh substrate and new hides, and they seem to be doing much better! Their original enclosure was getting a little dirty, there were a couple generations' worth of frass and dead bodies on top of the original substrate, and they may have been just a little overcrowded, so that must have been why they were doing poorly.

At first I thought it was some sort of fungal infection, so I asked Alan Jeon what I should do. He said that if it was a fungal infection, I should find and remove all viable oothecae I could, put them in a clean container, then take out any nymphs that hatch and quickly move them to their own clean enclosure, to make sure that they wouldn't be infected with the fungus. He also suggested that I take a few females and put them each in their own little deli cups, so that I could easily find and remove any oothecae they lay.

Luckily that all seems to be unnecessary, since re-housing my culture seemed to fix the problem, but just in case, I did separate all the ooths I could find, and also separated 5 females, just in case my culture is infected with a fungus after all...

Here are a couple pictures I took of an adult female, (one of the ones I separated to their own enclosures):

It's a very nice little species, and I'm glad I was, (seemingly) able to solve the problem they were having before it was too late, as I think I'm one of the two people culturing this species at the moment, would be a shame to lose my colony.

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Unfortunately, I am down to 16 Drymaplaneta nymphs, I accidentally smashed a couple while lifting their hide, and several more dropped dead for seemingly no reason. It may have gotten a bit stagnant in their enclosure, which could have been what killed them, since they abhor such conditions, however it wasn't that stagnant, so I'm not sure. Nonetheless, I have added more ventilation and am keeping them less humid, so far there haven't been any deaths since then...

I also added some bark to the enclosure to cover up the sandy substrate a bit, Kyle suggested I do so, since sand can be abrasive to the exoskeleton of roaches. Plus, it will provide better hides for the springtails I have added to their enclosure, in my experience springtails do best in cages with bark in them.

A few of the nymphs have made it to L3 already, which is great! I'm hoping that as they grow they will get hardier, otherwise it's unlikely that any of them will make it to adulthood...

I took some pictures of a few nymphs the other day, including an L3, here they are:

I really hope that I'll be able to breed these, they are probably the most difficult and fragile species in my collection at the moment, really want to get them established in culture here!

Anyway, that's gonna do it for today, I hope that everyone enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all next time! :)

Some Roach Updates & a Venus Flytrap Update

A few days ago I checked on my Polyphaga saussurei enclosure, and saw my adult female carrying an oothecae around!! I'm so happy to finally be getting oothecae from this species, now I'll just have to wait another 7 months until they start hatching!

Here are some pictures of the oothecae:

I really love this species, and I can't wait to see some hatchlings in the enclosure! :)

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My Cariblatta minima have been doing really well, and I got tons of offspring from my original adults, which are starting to mature now. However I have not really been able to get any pictures of them since they all love hanging out on the lid, which is a shame. I was able to get a couple of of half decent pictures of the nymphs through the feeding hole in their cage, no such luck with the adults however.

Here are the pictures of the nymphs:

And here is their enclosure

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Another one of my Balta notulata nymphs has matured, and my other adult has darkened in color a little bit, so I took some more pictures of them, which I'll share here:

I really like this species, I find the ornate markings on the adults very attractive!

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My Parcoblatta divisa nymphs are growing at quite staggered rates, some are still very small, and others have matured already! I have at least one mature pair of adults, and I took this opportunity to take some pictures of an adult male, turns out I never photographed my original male when he matured!

Anyway, here are some pictures of my sexed pair:

As you can see, the male is quite the attractive creature! Looks like this species is rather easy to keep and breed. :)

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My Parcoblatta uhleriana are growing at a much more even rate, most of them are getting pretty close to maturity, in fact I found an adult male in the enclosure the other day!

Here are some pictures of the nymphs:

Even after seeing Parcoblatta zebra in person, this species remains my favorite, I love the red bands on the posterior of the nymphs, and their "hunched" appearance.

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I put my Venus flytrap into hibernation a couple of weeks ago, before doing so I took some pictures of it. It grew really well this year and produced some really big traps, along with a lot of really tiny ones too. Hopefully it'll grow great next year too!

Anyway, here are those pictures:

Well that's gonna do it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all next time! :)