First of all, I have rehoused my Arenivaga floridensis "White" to a slightly larger enclosure than they were in, due to a bit of antennae nipping with my adult males. Hopefully now that they are in a slightly larger container, the antennae nipping will stop. My two largest female nymphs look like they are subadults now, which is great, hopefully they'll mature soon, there are certainly a lot of adult males in there for them to mate with!
The other day I checked up on my Drymaplaneta semivitta enclosure, and found that there was a small oothecae that had been laid on one of the eggcartons in the enclosure! 😮 Unfortunately the ooth is very small, so I personally doubt it's fertile, but after discussing with Kyle Kandilian for a bit, he said that the oothecae may be a "practice ooth", that the females lay before really cranking more oothecae out, so maybe many more ooths will follow!
Here are some pictures of the oothecae, (sorry for the poor lighting):
He also suggested that I feed baby food to them, as this sometimes helps roaches in dire situations that need urgent care, (how exactly, I have no clue), so I got some Pumpkin Banana baby food the other day and am going to be feeding it to my Drymaplaneta for a while, to see if it helps them breed or not.
My Lucihormetica grossei and subcincta refuse to give birth for some reason, I asked around and apparently I'm not the only one having this problem with Lucihormetica at the moment. I've rehoused my L.subcincta to a larger enclosure and added an inch or two of more substrate, as well as more dead leaves on top, and I added a few more inches of substrate to my L.grossei setup too, since the substrate in their cage was a little shallow. I also added some more ventilation to both containers. Hopefully this will help get them to breed, we will see!
Unfortunately, my Panchlora sp. "White" adult female seems to be getting old and may die off soon, and she STILL has not given me any offspring! 😩 I have taken her and the last adult male from the main enclosure and put them in a 24 oz plastic container with an inch or so of fresh coconut fiber, with bark pieces for hides. I am keeping the enclosure moist, and will feed them as normal, (chick feed and fruits). This comes after advice from Kyle, he said that he sometimes moves species that aren't doing particularly well for him to smaller enclosures, it's a trick he uses that apparently works well to help some finicky species breed better, (again, how exactly, I'm not sure).
I also dug around the main enclosure to see what other individuals I have left, and I found one very freshly molted adult female, a subadult female, and two subadult males. I have also rehoused them all to a 24 oz container, with fresh coconut fiber and bark pieces and dead leaves for hides, just to be on the safe side. I may actually split them up later and put each pair in their own containers.
Hopefully these changes will help to get these guys breeding properly, this species is so fussy compared to the other Panchlora in the hobby!
Lastly, I have some Pyrophorus noctilucus news! My adult female(s?) have produced a lot of larvae so far, more than I anticipated, which is great! 😁 Some of the larvae are starting to reach a good size now, and by good size, I mean about 5 mm long! So I have started separating larvae that are either close to the surface or right under the bark hides in the enclosure. So far I have separated three, as I am now out of empty, small deli cups lol! I will be buying more this week, so that I can separate more larvae, before they start developing their predatory tendencies...
Also, I rehoused that large larvae I was talking about recently, though I may actually have to rehouse it again, since it's current enclosure might be too shallow... Anyway, I took some pictures of it as I was setting up it's new enclosure, I even got a couple side by side pictures of it next to some mature Tenebrio molitor larvae for a size comparison!
Here are those pictures:
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| Now Kiss!!! |
Well, that's going to do it for this post, I hope everyone enjoyed, will see you all next time! 😉
Why are the Tenebrio worms not being murdered by the click larva? You said it could take down a Zophobas mealworm with little difficulty.
ReplyDeleteI like being "busy" with updates and "fun" research (see my really long carrion beetle brainstorm comment).
Well the Pyrophorus was quite disturbed from being dug up from it's enclosure, I find that many predators, when taken out from their enclosures and put in an empty deli cup with prey items, just don't eat because they are too focused on looking for cover. Those mealworms were murdered the next day when the Pyrophorus had settled down into it's new enclosure. ;)
DeleteWill check out your blog right now!
Yes, many insects lose appetite when frightened, but a considerable portion of species will never turn down a tasty meal anywhere and actually forgive human harassment when fed.
DeleteI won't be replying to any comments you make for a while, though. I posted another long speculative comment essay on my blog, however
Yeah, my centipedes for example have no problems tackling prey even if they've just been disturbed quite a bit! And I've hand fed a few roach species before. But the Pyrophorus larvae seem to become quite shy when disturbed sufficiently, unless you squeeze them, then they try to bite you, (which isn't something I plan on experiencing!).
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