New Pods and LOTS of Dubia!

Well, something interesting happened a few weeks ago. One of my local acquaintances did a joint rescue with Idaho Fish & Game, and rescued/confiscated a decent collection of herps and inverts. He offered some of the inverts to me if I wanted them, and you know me, I can't turn down free bugs. 🤣 

First off, and probably most excitedly, I was given 8-10 Cylisticus convexus "Ukraine - Pied". I have a real fondness for this species, their ease of care and unique morphology are both appealing to me, so having a Pied/Dalmatian morph of this species is even better! 😃 

Got mine set up in a moderately ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of what looks like coco fiber mixed with moss (it's what they came on), topped with leaf litter and bark. Keeping them quite humid and at 70-75F°. Feeding dog food in addition to the leaf litter.

Here are some pictures of them:

I expect I'll start seeing babies any day now, considering some of the females are gravid. 😄 

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Also nabbed a starter culture of Porcellio dilatatus, which have gone through the wringer and were initially set up far too moist. Letting the colony dry out a bit, and already they seem to be recovering nicely, I did find a few mancae the other day, so I expect within a few months I'll have tons of them, based on my previous experience with this species.

And lastly I was given a fairly large and well established culture of Blaptica dubia, which I merged with my smaller breeding colony. Interestingly there are both Alphitobius diaperinus and Tenebrio molitor present in the colony in small numbers, which I will likely isolate and establish separate colonies of for the heck of it. 😁 

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

"Masoala" portentosa Babies, Ammopelmatus Update, & Random Pictures!

Well I forgot to mention this in an earlier post, but two weeks ago, one of my Gromphadorhina portentosa "Masoala" gave birth! 😁 Oddly though I think it was a brood from my one sickly female, as I found her dead the same day. I'm pretty sure she actually aborted most of her ooth a few weeks prior and was acting a bit off from there on out. Thankfully she apparently still had brood in her, gave birth to about 15 of them, and then died. But the rest of my females are all healthy, and most are SUPER plump, so I'm expecting a lot more big broods soon (without the random post-birth mortality... 😅). And the offspring that were born are all healthy, and most have molted once or twice already.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs, plus one of the other adult females (showing off more "normal" coloration for this strain, compared to the "cherry red" female I showed off in my last post about this species:

Small nymphs

Adult female

So glad these have bred for me already, and hopefully there's a LOT more nymphs where these came from! 🤞

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Next up, some unfortunate Ammopelmatus sp. "Boise, ID" news. It would seem that heating my females to get them to catch up to my males in growth was a very bad idea, apparently heat, even coupled with high ventilation, causes a lot of issues with them, and all but one of my females died before maturing, with the last female not looking so good either. I've moved her back to a cooler location alongside my adult males, but I'm skeptical that she will make it. Poor decision on my part, but if I had just left them at room temperature they wouldn't have caught up to my males anyways... So seems like I may have been doomed to fail with the ratio of nymphs I found.

This is all particularly unfortunate, considering that now that all my males have matured, I now know that adult males of this species look pretty dang cool! They have long gangly legs, and VERY long spines on their hind tibiae that I've not noticed on other Ammopelmatus spp. males I've kept.

Here are some pictures of one of the mature males:

Hopefully my last female pulls through and matures in time to mate with one of my males, but I'm not holding my breath. At least I got to see adult males in person.

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My Alphitobius diaperinus are doing great, and I just added them to my For Sale list, but realized that despite having kept them previously years ago, I've never gotten decent pictures of them... So, for the completionist in me, and for my FS list, finally got around to getting some pictures of a group of adults. 😂

Here are the pics:

About time haha, still no pictures of the larvae, but meh, good enough. 😅

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Lastly, my Trachelipus rathkii "Ada County, ID" are also doing great, but again I've never gotten pictures of just normal grey rathkii... and I just added these to my FS list. So once again, for the sake of getting pictures of all the stuff I keep, and for my FS list, I took some pictures of then. 😆

Here they are, in all their glory:

I like the variation this species displays, they're a simple but interesting isopod IMO. Very intolerant of drying out though, and I only find them in very moist areas in the wild.

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

Yet Another Ty Dye Exotics Package!

Making posts about stuff I got from Ty Randall (of Ty Dye Exotics) has become a staple of my blog at this point! 😂 Thanks to his generosity I'm getting a second chance with several species, as well as getting to work with some new stuff!

Now let's just cover the five species he sent that I'm getting second chances with:

• Gyna lurida "Yellow". Last time I kept this morph of G.lurida they just didn't do fantastic for me, and I left the hobby before I could actually breed them. Additionally, according to Ty, he's pretty sure he got his current stock from Roachcrossing, so this should be Kyle's refined stock, that supposedly doesn't throw out the half brown individuals other "Yellow" cultures will.

• Hormetica strumosa. Completely failed to get any offspring from my last adults, and I'm not 100% sure why, though it could be due to a lack of proper substrate depth. This time not only am I starting with 10 small nymphs, I'll keep them on a much deeper substrate, which will hopefully result in success.

• Cubaris sp. "Blonde Ducky". Sadly all my females from the last group Ty sent me died, apparently from a lack of ventilation. Plenty of males survived though, and thankfully with this new group Ty sent me, I shouldn't have any issues breeding them from here on out. 😅

• Armadillidium corcyraeum. Sadly, similar story to the above Cubaris, the couple females in my small starter group died for seemingly no reason, and so I thought I had no chance of breeding them, hence why I asked Ty for a group. Ironically though, as I added the individuals Ty just sent me to my culture, I found a gravid female in the setup that I'd apparently missed... 😅 But oh well, more individuals definitely can't hurt, right? 😂

• Tenebrio obscurus. These I just wanted to breed again, I liked them last time I bred them, more so than T.molitor, and I could use more feeders, so I figured I'd ask for some. There were also some Alphitobius diaperinus stowaways in the oatmeal the Tenebrio were shipped in, so I guess I'll be breeding those again too. 😂

Since these are all species I've posted about extensively in the past, I'll refrain from sharing pictures of them in this post, and instead focus on the new species I got in this package.

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Let's start off with the most exciting, Arenivaga sp. "Mt Ord, AZ". I'm quite happy to finally get the chance to work with this species, which has actually been in culture for a couple years now at least. They're supposedly rather easy to breed, and a decently sized Arenivaga too. They were originally collected by Ben Senigaglia in the accumulated duffy debris at the bottom of an old tree stump at Mount Ord, AZ. As such they've been given the common name "Mount Ord Stump Roach", which I think is pretty apt and cute.

I have my starter culture of small nymphs in a very well ventilated 24 oz deli cup, with nearly two inches of coconut fiber as the substrate, one third kept humid, the rest bone dry. I added a layer of crushed leaf litter on top of the substrate for them to feed on, and in addition to this will also offer dog food regularly for protein. I'm keeping them at around 75F°.

Here are some pictures of a couple nymphs:

Such a cute species, I really can't wait to see adults! I have yet to see a single picture of an adult male of this strain, once I do though I'd like to give a crack at identifying them...

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Mixed in with the Tenebrio obscurus oats was a single Mezium affine, a type of "Spider Beetle", so called because of their superficial similarity to spiders (since the head tucks into the thorax most times, so it looks like it only has two major body parts, like a spider). 

These grain pests have gained a foothold in the captive invertebrate hobby, as an easy to culture oddball. Some people claim they have feeder use, however their larvae are tiny and usually never seen, as they bury into their food sources (usually dog food or something similar). And adults are very hard shelled and probably not very meaty, so I don't know what would want to eat them. 🤷😅 They certainly are prolific if kept properly though, and I personally find the appeal with such species is just to have a swarm of something to look at sometimes.

Anyways, I have no idea if this single adult is male or female, and it's pretty banged up, missing most tarsi and parts of some tibiae too. The hopes of establishing a colony with this one individual are very bleak indeed... But I chucked it into a 4 oz deli cup with a thin layer of sand at the bottom, and a small handful of dog food on top, just in case. Keeping it at room temps.

Here are some pictures of my sole spider beetle:

If I actually establish a culture from this single individual, it'd be pretty hilarious... 😂 If not though, after seeing this species in person and liking how cute they are, might actually have to get a proper starter culture at some point... 🤔

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Now for something even more obscure in the pet/feeder trade, which also came in the Tenebrio oats... the "Cigarette Beetle" Lasioderma serricorne. These are pests of stored goods as well, and while these ones have been reared on oats and dog food, their name comes from their propensity for eating dried tobacco products, like cigarettes.

I've got mine in a small, moderately ventilated deli cup filled with a layer of the oats they can with and dog food as the substrate/food, with cardboard pieces on top for the adults to hide in between. Keeping them at room temps. Admittedly there are still some Alphitobius mixed in there, which I'll likely need to separate from the culture in the future if I don't want them outcompeting the Cigarette beetles.

Here are some pics of these diminutive cuties:

I find grain and other misc food pests pretty interesting to culture, they're so undemanding, and a few of them make for some of the best feeders out there. Others are more odd and are really only of interest to those who like obscure little inverts, like myself. 😅

Speaking of which, there are also some Liposcelis sp. "Booklice" living in the oats, which I'll refer to as Liposcelis sp. "Brown - TX". Would be nice to establish a breeding population of those too, I used to have other Liposcelis in my collection, but they were outcompeted by springtails and predatory mites...

There are also tiny little wasps popping up in that culture, probably parasites of one of the beetles (I'm betting the Cigarette beetles). I've been trying to smash them as I find them since I don't really want parasitic wasps in my collection that pose a risk to the minute beetles I like to culture... 😅

Well, that about covers everything I got in this package, big thanks to Ty for sending these species to me! 😁

Thanks for reading this post, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉