Random Culture Updates & Overdude Species Introductions!

My Cristarmadillidium muricatum have been popping off! Unfortunately the "Dalmatian/Pied" morph I was working on isolating appears to have been a viral infection rather than genetically hereditary... as none of the offspring produced by those adults, nor the offspring's offspring came out with that patterning. But oh well, I got a healthy colony of C.muricatum out of that attempt, which I won't complain too much about. 😅

Some pics I took of a glob of them hiding under bark:

One of the cutest and easiest of the "spiny" isopods in culture.

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I got some Ischnoptera bilunata from Ty Dye Exotics a while back, but never got around to posting about them until now. It's a hardy and prolific species of cockroach, that IMO makes for a decent occasional feeder, or just a neat little pet species. 

I have mine set up in a moderately ventilated container with a thin layer of coco fiber substrate, topped in cardboard rolls and egg crate hides. I'm keeping them humid, at around 75-85F°, and am feeding them dog food and the occasional apple slice.

Here are some pictures of them swarming food:

I really like this species and find their patterning quite attractive, it's hard to capture on film but the adult females (which are darker and a bit more broad than the males) have an almost purplish sheen to them.

If anyone's interested in working with these cuties, they have been added to my For Sale page (along with every other species in this post actually)... wink wink nudge nudge. 😉 I think Ty also has them in stock, and I highly recommend him as a reputable vendor to buy from as well! If not roaches then at least get some scorpions from him, he's got some crazy variety available right now, the likes of which I've not personally seen in quite a while! 👀

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Now for another roach I have not posted about, but I got over a year ago from my buddy Brandon Maines, Paraplecta minutissima "Kenya", AKA the "Little Kenyan Roach". A cute species that does great in well ventilated, semi-humid bins with other larger roaches (like hissers). Often used as cleaner crews for those aforementioned roaches and as feeders, this is a popular little species that I finally decided to start keeping.

I have mine set up in a well ventilated enclosure with a couple inches of coco fiber substrate, kept on a 50/50 moisture gradient. They have egg crates and cardboard rolls on top of the substrate to cling to/hide on, and there are a few miscellaneous hisser males in there as well since they seem to like having a larger roach in with them for whatever reason. I'm feeding them dog food and apple, and have them at around 80-85F°.

Here are a few pics:

The adult males are brachyapterous and rather stout and rotund, while the females are microapterous and get dang near sausage shaped as they become well fed/gravid. 😆 A cute little species that is unique in culture, and the smallest Blaberid species in captivity currently!

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My Trachelipus caucasius culture has been booming, IME it seems they like minimal ventilation and very high humidity (though my lower ambient room humidity may have a role to play in those preferences).

Here are some pics of a nice looking adult, since I realized I only have photos of juveniles:

It's kind of a shame how unpopular these are, they get to a nice size, are hardy and have some cool patterning to them!

Speaking of unpopular Trachelipus, my T.sp. "Balkan Giant" unfortunately crashed hard, and I seem to be down to a couple unmated females. Not really sure what happened, I had noticed their setupgot overrun by invading Proporcellio, so I isolated my remaining Balkans and put them in a new setup under the same conditions. But then they just died off one by one... weird.

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Lastly, I have yet to show these off, but a while ago I acquired Platymeris rhadamanthus "Mombo" from the original collector of this stock. He had noted that the original founding stock had yellow spots on their wings, and that his colony had thrown out a wide variety of color forms (see my post here talking about hobby Platymeris for more info).

So I got eggs and hatched them out, rearing them in hopes for a more variable "Mombo" line. But alas, they all matured into adults with the standard orange wing spots. It would appear that if anything, adult coloration in this locality stock may have more to do with humidity and/or other environmental factors than strictly genetics.

Anyways, I have my colony in a moderately ventilated enclosure with a bare bottom and eggcrate hides. There is a deli cup filled with moist coco fiber for egg laying on one side, and I'm keeping them at around 80-85F°. I feed them a wide variety of live invertebrates, mostly roaches.

Here are some pictures of an adult:

I am a bit bummed out by the lack of color variation in this stock, but hey, at least I got a colony of "Mombo" finally, and man are they pretty nonetheless! 😍 

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

Brandon's Ballin' Box!

A few months ago I got in a big old box of bugs from Brandon Maines at Magnificent Beasts, mostly stuff I've previously had and either failed with, and some stuff I still have but wanted booster groups of just to be safe. Namely these species:

Blattidae sp. "Philippines"

Cariblatta lutea "Brooksville"

Cristarmadillidium muricatum

Eublaberus marajoara

Eurycotis opaca "Jaruco"

Princisia vanwaerebeki "Black & White"

Pseudoglomeris tarsalis 

Troglodillo sp. "Green Spot"

Therea bernhardti

Therea regularis

Plus, both Brandon and Junior Marquez sent me the very last of their failing Pseudoglomeris aerea colonies. I had sent the last of mine to Brandon earlier this year to see if they'd do better for him, unfortunately they did not... and Junior's weren't much better off. So, all in all I've got one adult male, one subadult female and two presub females... I think the three big parts of my previous failure with this species were:

1. Too much ventilation in their enclosure considering how low my ambient air humidity is. This caused dehydration, but keeping the enclosure more humid caused their bark and too much of the substrate to become moist to the touch, which these loath. Ideally you want high air humidity and low surface moisture with this species, so limiting my ventilation a bit more in the future will be necessary to work with this species. 
2. Improper hide choices also likely stressed my colony out, I used too flat of bark hides, without enough nooks and crannies for nymphs to hide and feel safe in. This time I'm using cork bark for hides, which seems to be the best hide choice for Perisphaerinae in general.
3. Poor temperature control, especially in the Summer. I think I let my culture get too warm last Spring/early Summer, due to space constraints in my last place of living. Now that I've moved into a new house though, I should have no issues keeping them at the proper temps year round.

Taking all these issues into consideration, I'm hoping I can salvage this colony, and keep this species going in culture. 🤞 

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Now, onto the few species he sent me that I've actually never kept before! First off, we have Ergaula cf. silphoides "Hobby Stock". Formerly labeled as "Ergaula pilosa", as we covered in a previous post, this species is not true E.pilosa, and is most likely E.silphoides (with the previously rumored locality data for this stock of "Malaysia" likely being inaccurate). But I wanted to see in person to confirm this suspicion, especially since I've struggled to find photos that very clearly show the morphological features I'm looking for.

Anyways, I've got then set up in a well ventilated enclosure with an inch or two of coconut fiber substrate, which I'm keeping two thirds humid, one third dry. I'm feeding them dog food and leaf litter for the staple diet, and am keeping them at 75-85F°.

Here are some pics of the fuzzy nymphs:

Here's hoping for adults within the next several months. 🙂

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He also sent some Anthrenus sp. larvae from his former home in Osceola Mills, PA. Initially he thought they were Dermestes lardarius larvae, which I was quite excited to keep, but on arrival I was instantly able to tell they were not Dermestes larvae, but rather Anthrenus instead. No idea which species it is, but nevertheless, happy to now have two different strains (and hopefully two different species) of this genus in my collection now.

Here are some pictures:

Hopefully they'll mature soon and establish a colony with little difficulty. 😃

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And lastly, he sent some Porcellionides cf. virgatus "Miami, FL", which is in the same species complex of "Porcellionides" as the sp. "Big Pine Key" and "Everglades" strains. I think there's only two other strain of this Florida complex in culture that I don't yet have, so I'm getting closer to having them all. 😂 These "Miami" are actually prettier than I thought they were, definitely a strain that looks better in person than in photos.

As with the other two lines of this complex I keep, I have this Miami strain in a well ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of coconut fiber substrate, topped with bark hides and leaf litter. I'm keeping most of the enclosure humid, and at around 75-80F°. In addition to the leaf litter they are being offered dog food for their diet.

Here are some pictures of them:

Definitely a neat isopod with some variable coloration, hopefully they'll breed as well for me as the "BPK" and "Everglades" lines have!

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

New Beetles & Isopods!

Got a few new inverts from my friends this month that I figured I'd group all together in this post. 😄

First off, Kyle from Roachcrossing sent me a special package, he went out and caught some fireflies for me! 😁 Namely a group of Photinus pyralis, and a female of a small Photinus species probably in the marginella/curtatus species complex. Sadly, all female fireflies and some of the males were DOA, however the pyralis females DID lay eggs in transit, which still look viable, so I'm currently incubating them in the moist paper towels they were laid in, and hope to have a decent starter group of larvae to work with. 🤞

I've always wanted to work with fireflies, they're so neat, and y'all know I love my bioluminescent inverts. 😄 Before now I've never even seen bioluminescent fireflies before, just the diurnal non-glowing species here in Idaho, so watching these glow has been a treat! 🥰

Technically they shouldn't be too hard to breed, but I've long been thrown off by the fact that larval fireflies mostly feed on snails and earthworms, which aren't the easiest food source to acquire where I live. However, I've come across anecdotal evidence from other hobbyists that larvae of at least some Lampyridae will feed on dog food in captivity, and I also found a picture of a Photuris larva eating a millipede on Bugguide, so they may be more opportunistic than I had thought. I'll try a variety of prekilled insects as well as dog food and see if they feed on any of that.

As for the adult males that survived, I've been offering them apple slices (which I've observed them feeding from). They seem to be doing nicely in their well ventilated, 32 oz deli cup with a thin layer of moist coconut fiber as the substrate. They'll only live a few weeks most likely, but watching them glow up at night is so cool. 😁

Here are some pictures of a couple of the live males, plus a comparison photo of a dead male and female:

Live Photinus pyralis males

Male P.pyralis Left, Female P.pyralis Right.

Note that the bioluminescent organ on the female is much smaller than the one on the male. The adult size isn't indicative of sex, as one of the other female pyralis that came in this group was smaller than most of the males.

Fingers crossed that my eggs hatch, would be amazing to start breeding fireflies in captivity! 😁 Lots of awesome and weird looking species/genera here in the US, would love to start introducing more Lampyridae into culture!

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Kyle also sent me a few Tenebs that he caught on the grounds of University of Michigan, which ended up being Xylopinus saperdoides. Sadly this species is in the tribe Cnodalonini, which are a huge pain in the butt to breed. 🙃 Not only do they require rotten wood for oviposition and for the larvae to feed on, but Cnodalonini larvae tend to also be quite cannibalistic and photosensitive, and are overall not very fun to rear.

So TBH I'm not even gonna try breeding the Xylopinus this year, but next year if they're still alive I may give them a proper breeding setup. Right now I'm just focused on trying to get my Iphthiminus to breed, I'm only gonna work on breeding one Cnodalonini at a time. 😅

Right now I've got my small group of adults in a well ventilated deli cup with some vertically slanted bark hides, and a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate, which I'm keeping humid. I'm feeding them dog food and apples, and am keeping them at room temperature.

Here are some pics of them:

Neat little species for sure, too bad it's in a tribe that is a pain to breed. 😂

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I also got a small package from my buddy Brandon of Magnificent Beasts, containing these absolutely adorable isopods, Cristarmadillidium muricatum! 😁 These cuties are a relatively small, pale species of "roly-poly" type isopod, and are covered in small spines. They're kinda new to the US hobby right now, but will probably become relatively common in the next year or two I think. They're easy to keep and prolific as well, which is always nice. 😄

I've got my 8-9 half grown individuals set up in a well ventilated deli cup with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate, with some leaf litter, bark pieces and sphagnum moss on top. I'm keeping them humid and at room temperature, and am offering dog food as the supplemental diet.

Here are some photos of the cuties:

I actually think one or two of them may be gravid already, so I might be getting babies soon! 😁 Fingers crossed these do well for me, such a cute little species!

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Last but not least, there were two Pyrophorus noctilucus adults and one large larva in Brandon's package too, which our friend Alan Jeon sent to Brandon to send to me, since they weren't doing that well for Alan.

The larva was a bit skinny looking on arrival (may have just molted recently), but has since plumped up and eaten a bunch in my care and is looking fine. 😁

I'm not exactly sure what happened to Alan's two adults, as they're both missing most of their legs and some segments from their remaining legs as if they were super old or something... But they're very clearly still young and active, since old adults lose their shiny luster as they age, and can't glow very brightly either. Whereas these adults are quite active, still glow well and overall look pretty young, other than the missing leg parts. In any case I think they'll still be useful for my breeding group, especially if they happen to be females (since males kinda gotta be able to run fast to catch up with mates lol), and I'll be pampering them for sure. 😊

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, big thanks to Alan, Brandon and Kyle for all these bugs! 😄 Hopefully everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉