First off, the week before last, I lost at least two nymphs, one was a large female nymph, the other a half grown one. I found them at the top of the substrate in the two driest areas of the enclosure, and I believe the cause of death was lack of moisture, (due to my recent finger injury I was unable to adequately water all areas of the enclosure). I've since fixed that issue, or at least mostly fixed it, and haven't noticed any more nymph deaths.
Now just a few days ago, I saw one of my adult females on the side of the enclosure, kind of unusual, as they usually spend most of their time underground. I took the opportunity to snag some pictures, and eventually spooked her into hiding again. Then, a couple days later, while doing maintenance, I found what I assume was the same female based on wing patterning, dead and in many pieces... She looked perfectly healthy a couple days prior, so I was surprised about her death when there are still more beat up, older looking females alive in the enclosure.
I'm also concerned about the relative lack of litters being born in comparison to the number of adult females in the enclosure, I hope the conditions are acceptable for consistent breeding...
On the other hand, it always seems like the colony is eating more and more food, so they must be doing OK at the very least... And most nymphs I've found during maintenance searches have been perfectly healthy. Hopefully I get some more litters born here soon.
Here are some pictures of the now deceased female:
Anyways, hopefully they'll start giving birth more regularly soon and I'll start seeing some more population growth, and now that I can water them properly I shouldn't see any more premature nymph deaths.
And now, a couple short Eleodes updates:
I never said, but I caught and added a male and another female to my Eleodes sp. (subgenus Blapylis) culture, and I've already got larvae from them now. Hopefully the larvae start growing quickly, my Pyrophorus could use some mealworms! 😛
Today I caught another pair of E.obscura, so that's great, my first female still hasn't laid any eggs despite me adding a bunch of sand to the substrate, I suspect this species may not oviposit until the start of summer.
Well, that's gonna do it for this post, I hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay distanced, and I'll see you all in the next post! 😉
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