Let's start off with the Eleodes tribulus. It is a small species in the subgenus Blapylis, males often have a small mucro, and both sexes are covered in hair. I only ordered a sexed pair, but Peter sent an extra female for free as well. 😁 Hopefully these will be relatively easy to rear, I've had mixed success with members of this subgenus, for the most part they have been pretty easy to breed though, just not all that prolific.
I have them in a small plastic container with coconut fiber as the substrate, with some dead leaves mixed in as well for extra oviposition impetus and/or larval food. I have cardboard pieces for hides and will be feeding them mostly chick feed. I will keep one area of the enclosure moist at all times and the rest dry.
Here are some pictures of them!
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| Male |
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| Female |
With any luck I should have little larvae within a month or two, will let you guys know how they do!
The other amazing invertebrate I got from Peter was a WC juvenile vinegarroon, Mastigoproctus giganteus, also known as a "whipscorpion". These are really neat and unique arachnids, they don't have any venom and while they do have pincers, they very rarely use them. Instead, to defend themselves they spray a vinegar like solution from their rear, using their "whip" appendage, the flagellum, to help aim the spray at their would-be predators.
The defensive solution is more mild than actual vinegar, and is basically harmless to humans. Sure, it would probably hurt a lot if it got in your eyes, but it likely wouldn't cause any long-term damage. That, coupled with the fact that these are actually pretty docile animals, makes them a great, harmless candidate for any bug enthusiast's collection! 😊
I am keeping mine in a gallon sized plastic container filled with a few inches of coconut fiber and sand, which I will be keeping moist. I have a bark slab in there for a hide, even though it'll likely construct it's own hide in the form of a burrow later on. I have been feeding it Parcoblatta americana nymphs and adult females, which it seems to like a lot. Will try larger prey items soon.
Anyway, here are some pictures of it while it is feeding on a P.americana female:
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| And the enclosure |
I'm really thrilled to have one of these in my collection, they are such cool looking creatures, really hope mine does well for me and lives a nice, long life in my care!
I also made a trade with Cody Will this week, I traded off the remainder of my Ergaula capucina for 10 Coniontis sp darkling beetles he caught in Cottonwood, California. I've been wanting to try and breed this genus again for a while now, so I am very glad to have some in my collection once again! This species is much larger than the ones I found here in ID, which is very nice, hopefully they'll be just as easy to breed!
I have them in a medium sized plastic container with coconut fiber and lots of dead leaf litter as the substrate, I put a small amount of leaf litter in the original mix, but then the beetles arrived and they were actually shipped in leaf litter, so I threw that in too, (after sterilizing it of course). Members of this tribe seem to really like leaf litter in their diet, (like Coelus and Eusattus), and while I haven't found it necessary to keeping Coniontis in the past, it certainly can't hurt to add some to their enclosure. 😄 I will keep most of the enclosure dry, with one moist area, and will feed them mostly chick feed.
Here are some pictures of them:
Anyway, that's gonna do it for today folks, you everyone enjoyed this post, will see you all soon! 😉
The Coniontis do have a very interesting shape. What do they tend to do over the course of two average days and two average nights? (imaginary example: they like soaking in moist spots, they move very fast, and they are only awake at sunset)?
ReplyDeleteAlso, how did you get them out of CA? Read this: http://bugguide.net/node/view/1364136
They seem to spend most of their time digging around the sides of the enclosure or resting somewhere just under the leaf litter in the cage during the day, and at night they come out and wander around on the surface a bit, to look for food, mates, etc. Overall they aren't that active.
DeleteEh, I heard that the ban was scaled back a bit, and TBH no one in the hobby is going to listen to those rules, and how can they possibly expect to enforce it? Apparently TX has almost identical laws in place, but they rarely inforce said laws, and people collect from TX all the time.
To be clearer, are there specific periods during the day/night do they dig, rest, and surface, or does it seem to be evenly distributed/random? Also, what is the ratio of digging to resting during the day? Example: The insect surfaces for around two hours after sundown. Then it quiets down until about seven o clock, when it digs for a few minutes and goes back to sleep.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I plan to create a big noisy campaign in the future. These are the sort of things that gov people pay attention to much more strongly, and if I display a bunch of beetles/moths in a fishtank to the public they can easily enforce it.
P.S: Where did you hear the ban was scaled back? I want to know more about this good news.
I don't know, to be honest I don't pay THAT much attention to them, but from what I've seen it appears to be random between each individual, some are more active than others at different parts of the day, just like with any animal really.
DeleteI have no idea lol, like I said I don't pay that much attention to them, and since they rest underground, it can be hard to tell whether they are digging or just resting.
Yeah, public exhibitions are a lot easier to restrict and enforce laws on, but private collections are a lot harder to enforce, since there are just so many of them.
I read it on FaceBook, but I can't for the life of me find the link anymore, and searching on google doesn't turn anything up, sorry. :(
Wait, "cardboard pieces for hides"? I read somewhere that toilet paper cardboard tubes have poisonous glue and aren't safe for birds to chew. Darklings chew wood, so I'm nervous.Unfortunately like you I can't find it either, but to err on the side of caution I still suggest replacing the tubes with guaranteed safer things.
ReplyDeleteI've been using TP rolls as hides for my inverts for years, and yes, the darkling beetle larvae do usually chew them up, never had any die as a result though, so I'm not too worried about it. :)
DeleteBut what about slow poisoning, possibly causing undetectable but eventually harmful problems? Still better to be cautious.
DeleteStill, I've never experienced any weird, seemingly inexplicable die offs before with inverts kept with TP rolls, I'm honestly not worried about it at all. Thanks for the head's up though, I appreciate it. :)
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