New Isopods, Springtails, & More!

A few months back, Kyle at Roachcrossing sent me some Euborellia cincticollis from an AL locality. Unfortunately they were infected with Trichoderma and died within a week of arrival, however the Cubaris murina "Citrus" he had sent in the same cup as them had no such issues, and what was originally supposed to be an earwig enclosure has become an isopod enclosure. 😆 Fine by me, as I didn't have this morph of C.murina yet, and truth be told I don't really want multiple localities of E.cincticollis THAT badly anyways.

I have these set up in a moderately ventilated jar with a couple inches of a coco fiber and sand mixture, topped in leaf litter and bark. I'm keeping them humid, and at around 80-85F°, with dog food as the staple supplemental diet.

These are about as easy to keep as it gets when it comes to isopods, and so it's no surprise that their numbers have skyrocketed in a short time.

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Last year I traded Alyssa at Forests of Asgard for some Armadillidium flavoscutatum "Albania", a beautiful new addition to culture. Immatures and smaller sexually mature individuals have bright red heads and first body segments, however as they age into large adults it seems many lose much of the red coloration. There may be a genetic component to that as well, but it seems age may play more of a roll in the coloration.

These actually proved difficult for me to establish at first, and I almost lost them a couple times. I was told this species prefers it drier, and perhaps when provided low ventilation levels or in a climate with much higher ambient humidity than mine, that would be true. 

However I've found that mine do best when the entire enclosure is kept humid (at least with good ventilation in my arid climate), and since making that change they have started doing really well and have exploded in numbers. 😄

I now have mine in a well ventilated gallon shoebox, with an inch or so of coco fiber substrate topped in coco coir chunks, bark pieces and leaf litter. I'm feeding them dog food and fish food pellets as their supplemental diet, and am keeping the entire enclosure humid, at around 75-80F°.

A beautiful species, and I'm really glad I was able to figure out their husbandry, albeit with a little trial and error. 😅

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These next inverts were yet another stowaway, this time with some brown rot wood from Green Bay, WI (which I needed for Cryptocercus I am working with), which I didn't sterilize. Lo and behold, these cf. Ptenothrix unicolor started popping up, and I've now isolated a culture in their own enclosure, which is doing well. 😄

I've got them in a moderately ventilated container with a substrate of aged sawdust, topped with some of the brown rot wood chunks they were collected on (sterilized, since the wood also came with large predatory mites that were eating the springtails). I'm keeping them on a 50/50 humidity gradient, at about 70-73F°, and am feeding them dog food as the staple diet (I suspect they also feed on the rotten wood).

So far they seem easy to keep and breed, if a bit slow growing/breeding. Probably not much utility as a cleaner crew, but they are a fascinating species in their own right!

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I had a few more Alaus oculatus "Hoover, AL" mature out, and have a couple more in the pupal stage, so it's looking like I may have another round of larvae being produced here within the next few months.

Snapped some photos of these adults with my phone, which I think came out pretty good!

Definitely the easiest of the Alaus to culture IMO, the others can be a bit of a pain in terms of getting them to mature in sync.

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Last, but certainly not least, I traded Adrian at Cypress Inverts & Exotics for a group of Pseudarmadillo gillianus! 😍 These are amazingly colorful and spiny Cuban endemics, that are still quite rare and hard to come by in the hobby. I've been trying to get my hands on this genus for years, and I'm so glad to have finally gotten them! 😄

I have mine set up in a moderately ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of coco fiber substrate as the base, topped with flake soil, coco coir chunks and bark chips. On top of that are a few layers of bark, leaf litter and moss. I'm keeping them humid, at around 80-85F°, and am offering fish food pellets as their supplemental diet.

Only have a few subpar phone pics of them here, in the future I'll try and get some better camera pictures of them, but for now I want to leave them alone and let them acclimate. They seem to be doing well for now, and I've seen lots of mating action, so hopefully that means babies are on the way! 😄

Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉 

A Few New 'pods to Show Off!

Last year I got some Cubaris sp. "Amber Firefly" (presumably the one of the OG lines) from Kyle at Roachcrossing. They've taken noticeably longer to grow, breed and establish for me than the "Light Color Form" line of this species, though care needs seem to be much the same. They're also a bit smaller on average than the "LCF", which really makes me wonder if they are the same species or not... 🤔 Whatever they are, they are gorgeous, and I personally much prefer the coloration of these to the "LCF".

I have them set up in a well ventilated gallon shoebox with an inch or so of coco fiber topped with coco coir chunks, leaf litter and bark. I'm keeping them humid, at around 75-80F°, and am feeding them fish food pellets as their supplemental diet.

These are definitely worthy of adding to any isopod collection IMO, such a pretty species!

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Early last year I got some Trichoniscus sp. "Costa Rica - Dwarf Purple" from SmugBug, an old hobby classic that's been commonly used as a CUC or feeder species. Originally I got them to use as feeders for Stenochrus, but I've found that Schizomids do best on a diet of springtails instead, at least in my experience. So now I just have a jar of these that I'm keeping for the heck of it, they are quite cute little things. 😄

They're in a minimally ventilated jar with a couple inches of coco fiber and sand substrate mix, topped in leaf litter and bark pieces. I'm feeding them dog food as the supplemental diet, keeping them moist and at around 75F°.

Definitely a cute and hardy little species, a lot less voracious than Trichorhina tomentosa (and so much better suited for use in a CUC).

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Last but not least, last year I traded Peter Rushton for a group of Armadillidae sp. "Castle Black". Supposedly hailing from Thailand, these have previously been identified and labeled as a few different genera (Cubaris, Venezillo, Spherillo), but none of those seem to be correct, and so for now the most accurate ID is simply Armadillidae. Chances are they belong to an undescribed genus, so might as well leave it there for now.

These are a beautiful and decently sized species that grows and breeds quite slowly, preferring a consistently moist and organically rich substrate (which they spend most of their time buried in). They have finally started breeding consistently for me, and I'm now happy to share them all with you. 😁

I have them in a moderately ventilated container with an inch or so of a coconut fiber, flake soil, leaf litter and rotten wood chunk substrate mix, topped with bark and moss. I'm keeping them quite moist, at around 80-85F°, and am feeding them dog/fish food as their supplemental diet.

They almost look like a better version of Cubaris sp. "Panda King - Tapir" to me, bigger and glossier than that species (and more consistently colored than the "Tapir" morph). 😄

Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Introducing Megaloblatta blaberoides!!!

US Blatticulturists have been eating GOOD this past year, one of the families that has had several notable members enter culture as of late has been Nyctiboridae. I'm sure y'all have seen my entries on Rochaina at this point, (which are doing quite well for me), but we've also gained a couple of Nyctibora spp. in the US hobby, as well as one of the most coveted roach genera out there, Megaloblatta. 😁 Specifically, Megaloblatta blaberoides, from Belize, the ever so slightly shorter cousin of the longest known roach species, M.longipennis (which translates to "long" (longi) "winged" (pennis), and is not in fact a reference to their male anatomy... 🤣). 

Kyle at Roachcrossing received an adult female last year and was able to get a decent amount of oothecae out of her, she laid about an ooth a month for the 6 or so months she lived in his care before dying (presumably of natural causes). Said ooths have only taken around 6 months to hatch for him being kept consistently damp and warm, buried in the substrate where the female left them. He gifted me 13 nymphs last month when I went to visit him in MI, so now I get the opportunity to work with this amazing, giant species myself! 😄

I have my nymphs set up in a large, moderately ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of coco fiber substrate, topped with coco coir chunks and lots of hardwood bark hides. I'm keeping them moist, at around 75-80F°, and am feeding them dog food and fruits. Care for this species honestly seems to follow typical tropical roach husbandry, however they take quite a while to mature (supposedly can take around two years), and oothecae both take a long time to hatch, and are sensitive to drying out. We also don't yet know how territorial they are, nor how sensitive they are to things like pests, pathogens, filth buildups, etc., so definitely still some things to figure out for sure.

Phone pics of L1/L2 nymphs

L4 nymph

It should be noted that these truly are massive roaches; the first instars are about a CM long, which is crazy for a species that hatches from a proper ootheca rather than being live birthed. 😳 I can't wait to see just how big these can get in captivity, seeing large nymphs in person will be especially neat, as they can supposedly stridulate loudly as a defensive mechanism (apparently sounds kind of like a rattlesnake). Just a really neat and unique species overall, so happy they've finally entered the US hobby, and that I get the honor of working with them! 😊

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

Rochaina metae Adults!!!

I'm a couple weeks late in announcing this, but for the first time ever, Rochaina have been reared from ooth to adulthood in captivity! And it was done by yours truly, with R.metae! 😁 My first adult male emerged June 16th, with my first female emerging 5 days afterwards.

Interestingly, these have been growing much faster for me than R.bilunata... or at least, half my R.metae have been. This genus seems to be one that is quite territorial, not gregarious like most other roaches, and as such don't really benefit much from the allee effect. About half of the offspring from the first ooth I hatched of this species are still at L3-L4, while the other half are subadults or have matured already. Additionally, all but a couple of the nymphs that hatched out of my second ooth died off after being thrown in the same enclosure as the older nymphs. 

I wouldn't even consider the conditions they were previously in crowded at all, at least not for most roaches. But, after noticing this, and finding my first adults, I moved them to a 5 gallon bin, rather than the 1 gallon jar they were previously in. 

Now, when I moved them, I tried going with a lower ventilation enclosure, with only a third or so of the lid ventilated, to reduce the frequency with which I needed to mist them; this ended with my first pair of adults dying off prematurely, within days of being moved to the new bin. 🥲 I then changed their setup to one with a fully vented lid, and that has seemingly resolved the issue, all subsequent adults that have matured are still alive, and a couple of the females are starting to get rather plump! 😄 Of course, now I have to mist them a few times a week, but it's worth the effort for such stunning species. 

So two new husbandry needs learned, and hurdles overcome:

1. This genus is not at all gregarious, and needs lots of space and surface area for optimal growth. Larger life stages will bully smaller ones for space and food and can severely stunt or even kill them.
2. High ventilation levels are an absolute must for adults, but nymphs can seemingly tolerate lower ventilation, at least longer than adults can.

Valuable information learned, even if learned the hard way. 😅 But this is all part of the process of spearheading the development of a husbandry methodology for a species and genus no one's had success with before, it's all trial and error. Thankfully I've got plenty of individuals to work with still, and am getting very close to closing the loop completely with this amazing species!

Adult male (under ring light)

Adult male (under sunlight)

Adult male, ventral shot (flash photography)

Adult female (under sunlight)

Male (right) & female (left)

L3/L4 nymph next to adult female; both hatched from the same ootheca

This is a much prettier species than I was expecting TBH, many pictures of them online (including most of mine) really wash their colors out, they are definitely best photographed/viewed under sunlight. 

They are surprisingly calm as adults, fairly slow moving and not very quick to fly, which is the opposite of how I thought they'd act. Their coloration must serve as some warning of bitter taste or mimicry of something else that tastes gross, for them to act so boldly. 

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