Hanging on by A Thread... Again

So, unfortunately one of my Drymaplaneta females died, I'm not 100% sure why, but it seems like she wedged herself under a cage decoration and got crushed when the decoration in question shifted; since there is no substrate in their enclosure, everything in there shifts every time I move the enclosure. I have two more adult females though, and two more subadult females, so I'm not too worried about that, but it still sucks to lose one. 😞 I have decided that I'll add a layer of bone dry substrate to the bottom of the enclosure, to stop this from ever happening again. As long as it's kept dry, they should be fine.

The real thing I'm worried about is that I only have ONE subadult male, all my other individuals are females, (save one nymph that I haven't sexed yet, it's pretty small and seems to be stunted). I really hope nothing unlucky happens to him, because if he dies before mating, I can kiss my culture goodbye. Honestly, I probably don't have anything to worry about, once I add some dry substrate to the enclosure the shifting decor shouldn't be a problem, and other than that they are doing very well in my care. I've started colonies with single sexed pairs before, so it should be fine, but taking into consideration my overall experience keeping this species so far, I can't help but be a little anxious...

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My Panchlora sp. "White" culture is also in a precarious spot, more so than my Drymaplaneta colony. It looks like I only have one female nymph, the rest are all males... 😟 I had at least two before, but for some reason my other one died as a subadult. I also lost two small nymphs early on due to unknown reasons, so it's not that surprising that I ended up with only one female. Still, there are like 5 or so males, it's quite an uneven sex ratio.

I've had an unsettling amount of random deaths with my nymphs, so I'm very scared I may lose this female too. Even if she matures successfully though, I'm gonna have to take most of the males out so they don't stress her out too much, and then there's the hassle of trying to get her to give birth. Hopefully she'll be more inclined to breed than her parents, since she hasn't had to go through any shipping stress. Still, it's entirely possible she may only have one litter like her mother, in which case I'm gonna have to go through this all again, with no real culture growth until my next generation matures, and who knows how many of those nymphs will survive?

All in all it's a pretty crappy situation, I just really hope she survives and reproduces for me, the most important thing is that I don't lose my culture, I've spent a lot of money, time and resources trying to breed this species, if I lose them I will be devastated! 😭 Fingers crossed I get lucky with these!!

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And lastly, it looks my female Chorisoneura texensis has died, after laying only three oothecae. In addition, it seems that most of those resulting nymphs died off fairly quickly, possibly due to me keeping them too humid, or perhaps this strain isn't as hardy as the one I previously had, (I'm guessing it's the humidity issue). I have at least four nymphs left, might not have any more than that, however I'm not sure if the third oothecae ever hatched, as she laid it out of sight, so it's possible that I may have a few more nymphs on the way.

Unfortunately, in addition to all of that, it seems like they have a minor grain mite infestation in their food bowl. Overall, I'm fairly confident that I won't have any more nymphs by the end of this month, and even if they make it to adulthood, I only have about four, so chances are they may all be the same sex. But who knows, I've had cultures come back from worse, take my Balta notulata for example, perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised by my remaining individuals! 🙂

Anyway, that's it for today, sorry for this bummer post, (with no pictures! 😧), this was kind of a way for me to vent, I really hope these cultures bounce back, that would make me really happy! Well, thanks for reading everybody, will see you all next time! 😉