Hobby PSA: Salganea t. taiwanensis = Salganea incerta

Thanks to hobbyist Filip Repta on Facebook, it's been brought to my attention that the "Salganea taiwanensis taiwanensis" circulating in the hobby were actually misidentified, and are in fact Salganea incerta.

Apparently Filip had sent some individuals from their colony, labeled at the time as S.t.taiwanensis,  to a university in Paris for subsociality studies, and the scientists at said university determined that they were actually incorrectly identified, and properly identified them as S.incerta. Afterwards this ID was also confirmed by another experienced Czech collector and breeder. So all EU, and by extension US stock of S.t.taiwanensis is actually S. incerta.

This may be old news for several EU breeders, but considering only a few US people currently keep this species, I figured it'd be relevant to bring up here. 😄

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On a side note, my colony of this species has been doing very well over the past several months. I've been feeding them white rot wood, which they absolutely love, and my colony has exploded from around 24 individuals at the beginning of the year to 60+ individuals! 😁 It seems offering white rot wood is key to colony growth, as well as keeping them in a dark place, and offering supplemental foods somewhat regularly.

Hope this post proves informative to others, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Salganea Checkup & Asbolus Eggs!

Well, I did a little checkup on my Salganea taiwanensis taiwanensis, and was actually able to get pics this time! 😄 However I found only 4 surviving nymphs from last brood, when previously I had seen at least 6 nymphs in there. So while said nymphs are all subadults and pre-subs now, it seems there has been some slight die off for whatever reason, which has me concerned. However, all 5 adults are still alive, and there is another new brood of small nymphs in there, 5 to be exact. 

Here are some pics of the group:

So, while it seems like I have a stable colony ATM, it's gonna be a slow growing one for sure. At least the nymphs grow rather fast, subadults in around 6 months. 

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Also, I am happy to report that I am already finding eggs from my Asbolus mexicanus mexicanus! Not only that, but the eggs are huge in comparison to most Teneb eggs I've seen, at least 3-4 mms long! The females must not lay that many eggs as a result, I feel like they can't fit that many inside of them in a single breeding season. 

I have isolated 2 eggs so far into deli cups filled with sand, with a horizontal humidity gradient, with the eggs placed in between the dry and humid substrate. Unfortunately while I did find a third egg, I accidentally smashed it, apparently they are quite fragile. I also have noticed a lot of mating, something I've not seen a lot of with Asbolus or Cryptoglossa previously, so hopefully that means I will be getting a decent amount of eggs from these!

Here are some pics of one of the eggs:

Will be sure to update you all once they start hatching out, I look forward to seeing the differences between the larvae of this species and of Cryptoglossa! 

Also, I have recently noticed that my Asbolus laevis are showing signs of mating too, I've not seen any actually hookups, but I have seen some probable males tapping the backs of other individuals with their antennae in an interested manner. So hopefully I get some offspring from those too!

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

Salganea Surprise, & Rapid Cryptoglossa Growth!

Well, um, first off... apparently I bred my Salganea taiwanensis taiwanensis months ago and didn't realize it this whole time, just found at least half a dozen HALF GROWN nymphs in their enclosure last week!!! 😂 I went from doubting I had a single pair in there due to no noticeable breeding activity, to having half grown babies, what a surprise that was! 😁 Evidently their nymphs are quite photosensitive, so I never saw any in the few tunnels the adults have dug up against the sides of the enclosure.

The funniest thing is I dug up the five individuals I started with in March, and judging by how big the nymphs are, they had to have been born by then, so I guess I'm just blind as a bat and didn't see them when I was digging around! 🤣
I am super surprised at their fast growth though, like I legit mistook the first nymph I saw to be one of my starter 5 individuals, specifically that subadult pictured in my March post... But then I quickly realized that it was not a subadult, and that that subadult should have matured long ago, so I went digging. 😅 At this rate, I should have adults by the end of the year or beginning of next year, I was expecting a much longer turnaround time!

Sadly no pics, because I didn't think to take any in my excitement, and I don't wanna stress them out and dig them up again... Which sucks because when they are this age they look very much like young Cryptocercus spp. nymphs, kinda termite-like. Figured I'd update ya'll anyways, this is quite an achievement for me, I've now bred two Panesthiinae species, my Panesthia angustipennis cognata are the last to go! 😉

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Now for a Cryptoglossa muricata update. So, in addition to the four I originally found, I found an additional two a couple weeks later, and then just a week or so ago I found another two, bringing me to a grand total of eight larvae. The first six have been growing very well over the last two months and are pretty similar in size to each other despite a couple having been much larger than the others, guess they catch up to each other quickly. 

Speaking of quick... Despite them only being around two months old, those six larvae are about HALF GROWN... Super fast growth, like insanely fast. Now, I'm sure the growth will slow down a bit, but they are already an inch long, a couple more months and they'll be pupation size!!! I wasn't expecting such rapid growth from these guys, but I do appreciate it, and so far I've not lost a single one by the way! 😄

Here are some pictures of a couple of the larger larvae:

Getting a little chonky now! 😊 Hopefully they continue to do well for me!

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

Salganea & Trichorhina Pictures!

So, I've been a little concerned about my Salganea taiwanensis taiwanensis, haven't seen much activity in their enclosure recently and was worried something was wrong. So I dug them all up, and was pleasantly surprised to see that all five were alive, and two of the three nymphs had matured! 😁 The remaining nymph is a subadult that looks very close to molting, so all of mine will be mature soon, only question is, did I end up with a pair? I have no idea LOL, still can't sex this species for the life of me, time will tell.

Anyways, here are some pictures of them:

Hopefully I have a breeding group here, regardless it's nice to see fully winged adults, they're quite pretty! 😍 I'll refrain from digging them up again anytime soon, hopefully if I do have males and females, they'll get to breeding pronto.

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It occurs to me that I've never taken pictures of Trichorhina tomentosa, despite me having kept them twice now. I realize it's a common species in culture, and my pics are in no way going to be near as good as many others', but I figured I may as well get pictures of the ones I have now, in case I need to use photos of this species at any point. 

Without further adieu, here are a couple pics from my current small culture:

I got these ones from Alan, they were in the same deli cup he shipped my Hormetica strumosa in, so instead of tossing them out I decided to give them their own small enclosure, (I definitely wasn't gonna throw them in with the Hormetica). They've been thriving on rotten leftovers and dead bodies I feed them from my other invertebrate enclosures, a very minimal effort species to raise.

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

My New Salganea taiwanensis!

Ty Panesthiinae Order Pt. 2/4

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This addition to Ty's Panesthiinae order is yet another new genus for me, Salganea! 😃 It's an interesting genus with adults often sporting some rough, almost spikey looking terminal segments and an overall different morphology from Panesthia and Ancaudellia. These Salganea taiwanensis are quite small and diminutive, even for this genus, and the adults in this package were about an inch in length. 

I find Salganea even harder to sex than Panesthia or Ancaudellia, (which are already difficult to sex, as males have very tiny terminal ventral segments that can be easy to miss, making you think they're females), so I have absolutely no idea what the sex ratio of my five mixed individuals is, but hopefully I end up getting offspring from them somehow. 😂 

I've got mine set up in a minimally ventilated container filled with a substrate of rotten cottonwood, and some rotten leaf litter for good measure. I'm keeping them humid and cool, around 68-72F°, and will be offering fruit slices every now and then as supplemental foods, (they'll mostly eat the wood, and maybe the leaf litter).

Here are some pictures of them:

Adults

Nymphs

An interesting new genus for me to work with, hopefully I'll be successful in breeding them, would be great to get them established in US Blatticulture! 😁

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, the last of my acquisitions from this particular order. I hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉