Rosie's New Clothes, & Other Misc Updates

Well well well, after YEARS of relative inactivity and sparse feeding behavior, Rosie, my female Grammostola porteri has molted! (on the 18th to be exact) 😁 Been quite a while since she molted, always nice to see her in her new skin, as she is always exceptionally pretty and shiny after a recent molt!

Here are some pictures of her in her new clothes!

Here's to many more years of Rosie being my best pet rock LOL, it's crazy that I've had her for over a decade now! She was one of my first invert pets, and my first exotic pet invert. 😊 Glad she's still going strong!

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Unfortunately, the smallest and youngest of my Lucihormetica grossei females randomly aborted her ootheca the other day, and I've no idea why... 😕 The other two females are doing fine, and my large female looks about ready to burst. The nymphs birthed by the medium sized female are all L2 now and seem to be thriving, so that's good at least. 😅

Hopefully my big female gives birth to a huge brood soon, and fingers crossed my smallest female produces another ooth soon. Wish I knew why she aborted, my husbandry hasn't changed at all lately, and like I said, the others are all doing fine. 🤷

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Last but not least, I have some good news and bad news regarding my Tomocerus minor, "Giant silver springtails".

Good news? They're breeding well, and even ignoring the predatory mites that found their way into their enclosure, so they seem pretty dang hardy! 😁

Bad news? Because I wanted to ensure other springtails (mainly my cotton springtails) wouldn't get into their enclosure and outcompete them, I put their tall, 32 oz container with only lid and upper side ventilation in a corner of my current bug closet, away from almost all my other inverts. The unfortunate bit is, there was one more container in that corner, directly UNDER my Tomocerus, that were isolated from the rest of my collection because of their pest potential... My jar of Sinella curviseta, AKA "Satan Springtails" (a term coined by my buddy Brandon Maines 😂), which only has minimal lid ventilation.

Well, SOMEHOW those pesky Sinella found their way into my Tomocerus container, and are already breeding in there too... So now I must go through the painstaking process of moving as many of the Tomocerus out of there without bringing ANY Sinella along with them, and I have to set up a new, clean culture of them. 🙃 So that's fun...

Oh well, lesson learned, and at least it seems like these Tomocerus will be relatively easy to culture! 😃

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

Rosie Eats, & a Random Plant Update!

Well, I hardly ever take pictures of Rosie, my Grammostola porteri female I've had for about a decade now, but I fed her recently and decided to snap a few pictures of her in action! 😄

Her she is chowing down on an unfortunate cricket:

The most annoying thing about this species is that they often go through long fasts, so I never know when she'll eat or not... This feeding was the first time in a couple months that she had taken food, and the week afterwards I bought her another cricket, which she then refused to eat... 😐 Such is the way of a tarantula keeper I guess... 😅

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And now, for something  I rarely talk about on my blog... PLANTS! 😂 Specifically, my Sempervivum arachnoideum. I've had a pot of these for over 6 years now, but over time the pot has gotten quite crowded, the soil has slowly turned into a mass of roots, and this year the plants started dying off slowly, as they weren't getting enough water...

Well last month I removed the last remaining plants from the clay pot they were in, and moved them to a new, plastic pot with a mix of Miracle Grow Houseplant Soil and Miracle Grow Succulent, Palm & Cacti Soil. Usually I just use the latter for my succulents, but this species seems to prefer more moisture than my other cacti and succulents, so I figured this mix plus the plastic pot would work nicely for them, (besides, I needed their clay pot empty for a new addition I'll be getting soon...).

It's been a month now, and most of the plants have taken VERY nicely to the mixture, despite the fact their roots had started to rot and needed to be cut back a bit, all but one of them look good as new and are growing nicely! 😁

Here's the ONE individual that still looks sickly, like they all did a short while ago:

And here are the rest of them!

So all but one appear to be healthy again, I'll take those odds any day! 😁 Hopefully that last one recovers, I'll do what I can for it, if not though I do have a cutting of this species growing in one of my other succulent pots, which I may move to this one to fill in that spot, (though eventually these plants will produce offshoots of their own, so the pot will fill up eventually anyways, one way or another...).
Anyways, just a little repotting/rescue story I felt like sharing, since I have a shortage of actual invertebrate related content to release right now... Besides, this species is actually called the "Cobweb Hen and Chicks", so I thought it fit along nicely with pics of Rosie eating... 😅

Anyhow, I think that's gonna do it for this post, I hope you all enjoyed, thanks for reading, I'll see you all next time! 😉

Acheta domesticus PSA

Hello there everybody, got a quick little story for ya'll! 😄

So back in December I bought four crickets for my rose hair tarantula, "Rosie", and low and behold, she decided to start fasting out of nowhere, as is the norm for this species. So rather than freezing or otherwise euthanizing my crickets, I decided to give them their own little enclosure for the time being, at least until my tarantula was hungry again.

Well ironically, after a few weeks in their new setup, they started dying off, one by one. At first I thought it may be dehydration, so I increased moisture levels and offered more fruits and veggies. That didn't work at all. I also thought it might just be territorial disputes, but when the population dwindled down to one cricket, and then it died too, I knew that wasn't the cause either.

After some research, I finally found out the culprit: the temperature. The temperature in my house was set to 68F°, and apparently Acheta domesticus need it slightly warmer to survive, around 74F° at least. I've inadvertently reared nymphs of this species from eggs to adulthood before, so I know the gist of their general care needs, but I had previously kept them in a warm closet where the ambient temps were in the mid to high 70s, never thought these would die when kept below those temps!

Anyways, I took some pictures of them on a whim a week after getting them, so here they are:

Well, at least I know better now, and I hope you all do too! 😅

Anyways, that's gonna be it for this post, hope it educated or at least amused some of you! Thanks for reading, see you all next time! 😉

Orange Isopods, Pie-Dish Beetles & My Rose Haired Tarantula

I have been having good luck isolating a orange color morph from my Porcellio scaber colony, I found a few orange individuals in a campground a few years ago and put them in with my normal P.scaber, resulting in dull orange offspring between the two. Luckily when I isolated those dull orange individuals they produced some bright orange offspring, along with some normal ones as well.

Here are some pictures of the brighter colored individuals:

I have moved these individuals to their own enclosure and will continue isolate the color morph even further until it is pure. :)

My "Orangish" Oniscus asellus are also breeding, most of the offspring look rather normal, just a bit lighter than normal O.asellus, there are no intensely colored individuals yet, but hopefully that'll change.

Here are some pictures of the adults:

Really hoping some of the offspring will be a brighter shade of orange, this color morph is nice but I would really love a intense orange color morph of this species.

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My Embaphion muricatum have been doing great, these are one of the easiest to breed darkling beetles I've ever kept, I've been rearing quite a few larva to adulthood, and these new adults have begun laying eggs already.

Here are some of my adults together:

I may have larva of this species available for sale in the future, they are pretty rare in the hobby and I would love for them to become more common. :)

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My Grammostola porteri, Rosie, has been eating a lot since she shed her skin, which is normal for a tarantula that has recently molted. The other day I fed her a superworm, which she pounced on as soon as it hit the substrate, and I took a few pictures which I thought I'd share here.

Here are the pics:

She's getting plump again, which is good, hopefully she'll continue to do well and live a very long life!

Anyway, that's gonna do it for tonight folks, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I 'll see you all soon! :)

A Couple of Arenivaga Updates, & an Update on My Tarantula

My Arenivaga bolliana have been doing well, and one of my males just matured a few days ago! Unfortunately one of his wings is a bit messed up, which causes the rest of his wings to not fold up completely, but it shouldn't affect his health or anything.

Here are some pictures of him:

My "adult" female molted as well, I'm hoping she's mature now. She has a bunch of coconut fiber adhered to her, which is an annoying sort of camouflage that I've seen in other burrowing cockroach genera such as Hemiblabera and Blaberus.

Here are some pictures of her:

Hopefully my female is mature and will start laying lots of oothecae! :)

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My male Arenivaga tonkawa nymph died, again. I am pretty upset about this, I don't know why my males of this species always die before maturing! :( My females are still doing well, and there is a moist spot always available in the enclosure, so this time it was not due to improper care. Looks like I'll need to get another one at some point, what a bummer.

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My female Grammostola porteri, Rosie, has molted for the first time in about three years! She sure took her sweet time with this one.

Here are some pictures of the molt:

I did not get any pictures of Rosie herself, I just wanted to show that she molted.

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

My rose hair tarantula

My Chilean rose hair tarantula, Rosie, was my first pet invertebrate. I got her a little over 5 years ago. She was approximately 2 years old then, and was medium sized, for a tarantula. Now, over 5 years later, she's a bit of a beast! She eats crickets, and deformed darkling beetles, when I have them. She absolutely refuses to eat Eleodes larva or superworms, I guess because they feel quite different from crickets, which has been her staple diet her whole life. She is docile when she's not hungry, and will usually let me handle her without a fuss. I have yet to be bit by her, and I hope to keep it that way, lol! Here are some pics of her!

(Better lighting in these two pics)

These guys have been reported to live up to 20 plus years, so hopefully I will have Rosie for a long time to come! Anyways, as always, hope you guys enjoyed! :)