Darklings From Kai! (Through Roachcrossing)

This post foreshadows my next few posts, where I'll be discussing a large package I got from Kyle of Roachcrossing... 😁 However, before I get to those, my friend Junkai Wang went on a collection trip with Alan and co. out west earlier this Summer, and he caught some Tenebs for me, which he then gave to Kyle to send to me. 😄

So, let's start off with the most exciting new addition Kai collected IMO, Embaphion muricatum "Chaves County, NM"! 😍 Kai sent me a couple adults, both of which appear to be female, and the substrate they were shipped in was filled with a couple dozen eggs and newly hatched larvae! 😁 FINALLY some fresh, Trichoderma mold free E.muricatum, something I've been unable to find for the past year, since it seems EVERY existing colony of my old "Albuquerque, NM" stock left in captivity is contaminated with that fungus... 😢 But now I've got new stock to work with, and can help establish clean cultures in the US hobby once again.

I've got them house in a well ventilated container with an inch or so of coconut fiber as the substrate, with a piece of bark for the adults to hide under. I'm keeping a third of the substrate humid, the rest dry, and keeping them at around 75F°. I'll be feeding them dog food and the occasional root veggie too.

Here are some pics of one of the adults:

They're already laying eggs in their new setup, I should have tons more larvae soon! 😁

---

Next up, both Kai and Kyle sent a few Edrotes from various locales, most of which appear to be E.ventricosus, but one oddball might actually be E.rotundus (or just a weird ventricosus, hard to tell because both species are very variable). This genus had previously been written off as impossible to breed, however fellow Teneb hobbyist Grant Wass figured out the key: a VERY fine sand substrate. 

So, I've got mine all set up in a well ventilated container with an inch or so of fine sand and fine clay substrate, I'm keeping one corner humid, the rest bone dry. I'll be feeding them dog food, and keeping them at around 75F°.

Here are are pictures of the cuties:

E.rotundus?

E.ventricosus

Comparison between the two

Hopefully I can get larvae from this genus, that would be very nice indeed! 😁

---

Lastly, Kai sent me some Cryptoglossa infausta, arguably the least commonly collected Cryptoglossa species, one I almost never see in culture. Interested to see if they'll breed for me, would be cool to document the life stages of such an obscure death feigning beetle. 😃

I've got them set up in a well ventilated container with an inch or so of fine clay substrate, keeping one corner moist, the rest dry. I'll be feeding them dog food, and will keep them at around 75F°.

Here are some pictures of a couple of them:

Here's hoping they'll breed for me, definitely seems like I have both males and females. 😄

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, big thanks to Kai for collecting these beetles and sending them to me! ❤️😁 Thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Pie-Dish Beetles Are Back!

Thanks to the generosity of Chandra Orr at Roachtopia, one of a few keepers who has kept my old line of Embaphion muricatum going in the hobby (which I originally got from Michael Dixon at Mike's House of a Thousand Legs/ThePureLife), I've got a starter group of 20 medium/large larvae of these iconic "Pie-Dish Beetles"! 😁

Got them set up on a substrate of coco fiber mixed with a little sand, with a 60-40 horizontal humidity gradient, erring on the dry side. The enclosure is very well ventilated and being kept at 75F° or so. I'm using dog food as the staple diet.

Some pics of the larvae:

They might look like normal mealworms, but the beetles they mature into are anything but normal! 😄 This species did great for me in the past, and I have little doubt I'll have a thriving culture up and running again in no time!

---

Also, I may have been a bit overzealous to report a month or two ago that my Eleodes obscura glabriuscula bred, I'm pretty sure the very few larvae I found in their enclosure previously were offspring from the Eleodes hispilabris housed in the shoebox on top of them that escaped and got into the obscura bin... However, I'm now finding lots of tiny hatchling larvae in my obscura bin which leads me to believe they are actually breeding now, hooray! 😅 Just thought I'd mention this, if anything just so I can more accurately remember when I really got larvae from this species.

---

Lastly, bit off topic, but just thought I'd announce that I've already found offspring in my Cubaris sp. "Panda King" enclosure... 😂 So wow, this species is easy lol!

Anyways, that's it for today's post, got some really neat new additions recently, with more on the way hopefully, so look forward to new posts soon! 😉 Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see everyone next time!

Orange Isopods, Pie-Dish Beetles & My Rose Haired Tarantula

I have been having good luck isolating a orange color morph from my Porcellio scaber colony, I found a few orange individuals in a campground a few years ago and put them in with my normal P.scaber, resulting in dull orange offspring between the two. Luckily when I isolated those dull orange individuals they produced some bright orange offspring, along with some normal ones as well.

Here are some pictures of the brighter colored individuals:

I have moved these individuals to their own enclosure and will continue isolate the color morph even further until it is pure. :)

My "Orangish" Oniscus asellus are also breeding, most of the offspring look rather normal, just a bit lighter than normal O.asellus, there are no intensely colored individuals yet, but hopefully that'll change.

Here are some pictures of the adults:

Really hoping some of the offspring will be a brighter shade of orange, this color morph is nice but I would really love a intense orange color morph of this species.

---

My Embaphion muricatum have been doing great, these are one of the easiest to breed darkling beetles I've ever kept, I've been rearing quite a few larva to adulthood, and these new adults have begun laying eggs already.

Here are some of my adults together:

I may have larva of this species available for sale in the future, they are pretty rare in the hobby and I would love for them to become more common. :)

---

My Grammostola porteri, Rosie, has been eating a lot since she shed her skin, which is normal for a tarantula that has recently molted. The other day I fed her a superworm, which she pounced on as soon as it hit the substrate, and I took a few pictures which I thought I'd share here.

Here are the pics:

She's getting plump again, which is good, hopefully she'll continue to do well and live a very long life!

Anyway, that's gonna do it for tonight folks, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I 'll see you all soon! :)

A Bunch of Beetle Updates

So, today I took one of my containers that I put a Coelus ciliatus larva in a few weeks ago, and dumped the substrate out in search of a pupa. Instead, I found a pre-pupa in it's cell. I have removed it from it's cell and put it on top of the substrate so that once it pupates I will be able to get some pictures of it.

Here is a picture of the pre-pupa larva:

Hopefully it will pupate soon, can't wait to see what the pupa of this species looks like! :)

---

My Embaphion muricatum have been doing very well, and I thought I'd just share how I've been pupating them, seeing as I've been doing quite a lot of it lately.

First, I take a small deli cup and fill it with a good amount of moist coconut fiber. Then I press down and compress the substrate, so that it will hold it's form when the larva makes it's pupal cell.

Then I add a little bit more uncompressed substrate to the container and add a large larva. Usually the larva will explore the cage for a couple of days then settle down and make a pupal cell at the bottom, as you can see here:

Then, after about a week, it pupates, (This pupa is a different specimen BTW):

Here's my current setup for them, I've been pupating them four at a time, though I have another bigger deli cup for larva that I already find in the pre-pupal stage in my breeding enclosure:

Once the pupae molt into adults you then need to move them into a cage with a dry substrate ASAP, otherwise they'll die from the high humidity.

And that's all there is to it, I hope you guys find this useful, this method works for several species of Tenebrionids, though you may need to make slight changes depending on the species, (e.g. changing the substrate to sand for species like Coelus ciliatus or Eusattus muricatus, using much larger deli cups for species like Eleodes obscurus or spinipes, etc.).

---

My Eleodes hispilabris that I've placed in my Gromphadorhina sp. "Hybrid" enclosure have been doing well, and I have started pupating their larva. I pupate them the same as I pupate my Embaphion murciatum, just put the larva in a deli cup filled with moist coconut fiber and they'll build a cell, usually at the bottom, but not always.

Take this larva for example, it made a cell in the upper layer of the substrate, and left the roof of the cell open to the lid, making it easy to snap pictures of it:

Here's an adult that had just ecclosed probably less than an hour before I found it:

Here's the same beetle a few hours later:

And here it is the next day:

I really like this species of darkling beetle, it is pretty common here in Idaho and is pretty prolific and easy to rear, making it a good occasional feeder.

---

I have, once again, begun to try and breed the most common large rove beetle in my area, Tasgius melanarius. This time, instead of separating the larva and adults, I'm keeping them all together in a cage with breeding populations of Armadillidium vulgare and Porcellio scaber, I added some Trichorhina tomentosa to the cage recently in the hopes that they'd breed as well, hopefully they don't get eaten first.

The adult pair and many larva seem to be doing pretty well so far, the larva seem content to eat the isopods in the cage rather than each other, and I have yet to see an adult eating a larva. Of course they could be eating each other while I'm not looking, but the amount of larva still alive seems to be pretty high, and I often find them very close to each other.

Here are some pictures of first instar larva:

And the adult female:

This is like the hundredth time I've tried breeding these, getting the adult females to oviposit is no biggie, but I think I have yet to rear a captive bred larva to adulthood, though I've reared a few wild caught larva to adulthood with ease. Here's hoping that this time I will be able to rear a large enough amount of larva to maturity to breed another generation.

Well, that's it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all next time! :)