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! 😉

Lucihormetica grossei BABIES!!!

WOOHOO!!! 😁😁😁 Of all the roaches in my collection currently, the ones I've been most eager to breed are my Hormetica strumosa and my Lucihormetica grossei ("Mega Glowspot Roaches"), and I can now say that I have bred the latter!!!

I found a few first instar nymphs in their enclosure on the 27th, I haven't gotten a real headcount but there are at least three, and it does seem like it's a small litter, as it was one of the smaller females that gave birth and she didn't even look that gravid to begin with, (whereas my largest female is basically a walking sausage right now, so hopefully she'll give birth soon as well to a much larger litter!). But I'm not complaining, I'm just glad I got babies period, as my last attempt at breeding this species was unsuccessful on account of me receiving adults in the past, which handle shipping horribly. SO stoked I got babies from them to begin with, and I hope there is more where this came from!

Here are some pictures of one of the L1 nymphs:

So cute right? 😊 Really hope they do well for me, I love Hormetica and Lucihormetica, and really hope to be successful in breeding both genera!

Anyways, that's it for this update, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all in the next post! 😉

Mega Glowspot Adults!!!

The first of my Lucihormetica grossei are now mature! 😁 I've got two adult males and one adult female so far, the female is a nice normal size, (or at least around the size of the female I had years ago), but the males seem a little runty, I'm afraid the two gallon container I have them in wasn't big enough for them to reach their full size, so that's a little disappointing... These larger Lucihormetica/Hormetica stunt SO easily. One of the males also came out with messed up wings, I think a result of molting against the buried bark in the enclosure, with the wings being shaped against the bark or something... So I've removed some of said bark from their enclosure to ensure that doesn't happen again.

In any case, the other pair that matured with perfect wings are so beautiful, and it's nice to see adults of this species in person again! 😄

Here are some pictures:

Adult male

Adult pair

Adult female

Such a stunning Lucihormetica species, really looking forward to breeding these beauties, wish me luck! 🤞😃

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

Mega Glowspots are Back!

And so begins breeding attempt #2 with the largest glowspot roach in the hobby, Lucihormetica grossei! 😁 This time I'm starting out with nymphs, not adults, which should increase my chances of successfully breeding them by a LOT, (shipping stress can quite adversely affect adults of this genus, and I suspect that is why neither of my Lucihormetica species from back in 2017 bred for me). Thanks to Kenn and Joshua Mease for sending me this group of 8 small/medium nymphs!

I've got them set up in a similar fashion to my Hormetica strumosa, in a 2 gallon tub with several inches of moist, compressed coconut fiber, with some vertically slanted hardwood bark slabs buried in the substrate for them to make stable tunnels and chambers against if needed. I'll keep them humid and moderately ventilated, at around 75-85F°, and feed them chick feed and fruits.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs:

Looking forward to working with this species again, hopefully they'll be more well established here in the US soon, it's such a beautiful cockroach! 😁

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! 😉

Simandoa & Hormetica Updates!

Well, my largest Simandoa conserfariam nymph is a nymph no more, he matured a couple days ago, and he is beautiful! 😁 I can't believe it took me this long to acquire this species, the beautiful adult coloration, coupled with the faint squeaking they make when disturbed has made me fall in love with them! 😄

Here are some pictures of him:

He's really something isn't he? Can't wait until the other two nymphs mature, this is one good looking species!

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Speaking of good looking species, two of my Hormetica apolinari males have matured, and oh boy are they gorgeous!!! 😍

Unfortunately they are runts, I've been keeping all six of mine in a gallon enclosure, planning on moving them when they seemed crowded, but instead of them getting crowded, I just stunted their growth, which is a bit of a bummer... But hey, they are still stunning regardless, and I'll be rehousing them very soon! 🙂

Here are some pictures of the males:

And here is a male compared to a male L.grossei

I really hope I can breed this species successfully, unfortunately my L.grossei female died without producing any offspring, and my L.subcincta female hasn't given birth either... 😢 Hopefully the same thing won't happen to my H.apolinari, we'll find out I suppose.

Well, that's gonna do it for today folks, thanks for reading, will see you all next time! 😉