Misc March Updates

A pictureless update post, lots of stuff happening in the collection this month, I'll try to sum some of the more significant updates up in this post! 🙂

First off, my Vonones ornata "Ocala, FL" are doing fantastic, and all five babies from the first wave of offspring are growing well and look more like mini adults now. 😁 In addition to this, the second wave of offspring has started hatching out, and I've found at least 11 new babies in the adults' setup (which is now a gallon container). So happy this species is breeding well for me, can't wait until I have a nice big colony established! 😄

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In other great news, my one Margattea sp. "Macao" female matured a month or so ago, has been and still is laying ooths, and I've already got my first set of hatchlings! 😁 I'm well on my way to finally establishing a good colony of this species, and should hopefully get them established in the US hobby soon!

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Now for some quite unfortunate news... My male Pseudacanthops lobipes died, without successfully mating with my female... 😭 For some reason, he started getting really weak, at first I thought he was dehydrated or hungry, but after misting him and watching him drink, and feeding him, he showed no signs of improvement. When he did die, it almost looked like he had a prolapse or something.

Not sure what did him in, one theory I had was potential pesticide poisoning, from walking on the walls of my bug closet one time when he flew away from the female. I thought maybe the owners of this house previously sprayed insecticides inside, but I've had some roaches get out of their enclosures and crawl on the floor and walls too, and upon being captured and put back in their setups, none of them showed signs of poisoning... 🤔

It should be noted that he also had plenty of ventilation, so lack of airflow wasn't the issue here, like it was for my first adult female.

However, while this is very sad news, there is a sliver of hope for me here. The females of this species can supposedly produce at least one or two viable ooths via emergency parthenogenesis before they die. The amount of offspring per ooth would be minimal compared to fertilized ooths, and the offspring will of course all be female clones of the mother.

Additionally, since it's emergency parthenogenesis in a species that normally breeds via sexual reproduction, said parthenogenesis will likely only last a generation. Meaning that if the offspring produced via parthenogenesis mature and aren't mated, they won't be able to reproduce via parthenogenesis themselves, they'll absolutely need males to mate with. But, I'd at least have another generation of females to work with, and hope I can find plenty of males for them in the future. Either that or push my luck and hope I can beat the odds and create a stable, multigenerational parthenogenetic strain (as has inadvertently been done in certain roaches like Polyphaga saussurei and P.obscura).

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Back to happy news, just last week, I finally found babies in my Balta vilis setup! 😁 They're breeding much better for me than they have in the past, looking forward to hopefully spreading them around in the hobby here in the US soon!

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In other Ectobiid related news, found hatchlings in my Euthlastoblatta diaphana enclosure a month ago, and man are these things prolific! 😅 I've already put them up on my For Sale page, and am hoping they'll catch on, as they are quite pretty Ectobiids and a good gateway species into the more finicky ones IMO.

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Lastly, some nice springtail news, found babies in my Isotoma viridis cup a couple weeks ago, and they've been growing very fast! They're such adorable little springtails, glad they're breeding well for me! 😁

Well, that does it for this post, next post we'll wrap up the Nicoluc Shipment series, and after that I've got more updates and exciting new additions to show off, so stay tuned! 😄 Thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

New Yard, New Springtails!

If you're wondering why the lack of posts lately, I just moved into a new place at the beginning of this month, so things have been a bit hectic as of late. 😅 Anyways, with a new house comes new opportunities for collecting new species, and this place has a fairly spacious backyard... So for the first time ever, I've made a makeshift aspirator (AKA "Pooter") for collecting microfauna, specifically springtails. 😁

I used a 2 oz deli cup, a plastic straw, some thin fabric to cover the sucking part so I don't inhale dirt and springtails, and of course, hot glue. 😄 It's not the prettiest looking thing, but it definitely works quite well, and I've collected three new springtail species as a result! (as well as some Willowsia buski, which I'll try culturing again away from my Entomobrya unostrigata...).

My first aspirator

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Now, onto the new springtails I caught! Let's start off with my new Entomobrya sp. "Eagle, ID"! These are about half the size of Entomobrya unostrigata, but are a similar shape, are also very hairy, and seem to prefer similar conditions for breeding.

I've got them in a well ventilated 16 oz deli cup with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate. There are bark chips and cardboard pieces for hides/oviposition sites. I'm keeping one corner of the setup humid, the rest dry. For food I'm offering dog food (and the subsequent food mold), as well as pollen on occasion.

Here are a few photos of one:

Sadly, small, grey Entomobrya like these are difficult to ID down to species without examination under a microscope... So these may remain unidentified past genus for a while.

Thankfully I already found babies in their setup, so it looks like these are well on their way to getting established in culture! 😃

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Next up, I found quite a few Entomobrya multifasciata in the yard! These also seem to enjoy a drier microclimate, and we're more abundant than the grey Entomobrya species in the yard. I think these are the most attractive of the Entomobrya I currently culture (and closer in size to E.unostrigata than the grey sp.), I really hope they'll take off for me! 😁

I've got them in a well ventilated 16 oz deli cup with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate. There is moss and cardboard pieces for hides/oviposition sites. I'm keeping one corner of the setup humid, the rest dry. For food I'm offering dog food (and the subsequent food mold), as well as pollen on occasion.

Here are some pics of these minute beauties:

Hopefully I'll see babies in their setup soon!

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Lastly, we'll end with the largest (and cutest) species I found in the yard, Isotoma viridis. I've bred this species before back in 2015, but alas, predatory mites decimated their colony back then, and I lost them as a result. This species can be a bit variable in coloration, most of the ones I found were a dark green, but a couple were a relatively bright yellow color.

I've got them in a well ventilated 16 oz deli cup with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate. There is moss and cardboard pieces for hides/oviposition sites. I'm keeping the setup quite humid. For food I'm offering dog food (and the subsequent food mold), as well as pollen on occasion.

Here are some pics of these pudgy little cuties:

Dark green individual

Yellow individual

Hopefully I'll have better luck with this species this time, and maybe not lose them completely to predatory mites... 🙃 They're pretty large for a springtail, with adults reaching around 4 mms, so I'm surprised they were so negatively affected by predatory mites last time I cultured them.

Big thanks to Ryne Pavy for identifying all these springtails! If you too are interested in culturing springtails, and partake in this quickly growing sub-hobby, feel free to join the Springtail Discord Group, or the Springtail Facebook Group. 😊

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