Anyway, for the most part, I've been very successful in my breeding endeavours this year, a few of my favorite breeding successes from 2017 include:
Pyrophorus noctilucus (*)
Corydidarum pygmaea (*)
Eurycotis improcera (*)
Balta notulata (*)
Oniscus asellus "Mardi Gras Dalmatian" (*)
Polyphaga saussurei (*)
Panchlora sp. "White" (*)
Drymaplaneta semivitta (*)
A few of these were species it really looked like I was going to lose from my collection, but luckily they rebounded, and their numbers are on the rise! 😄
And let us not forget my breeding failures too, quite sad I wasn't that successful with these, but with each failure I experience, I learn something new, so I am thankful for the time I had with each of these species:
Stenopelmatus sp. (*)
Latiblattella lucifrons (*)
Melanolestes picipes (*)
Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" (probably)
Chorisonera texensis (for the second time!)
Alobates pensylvanica
Dorylaea orini (*) (but I've got another batch now)
I am very excited to see what 2018 has in store for me and my collection, hopefully I'll be getting some pretty cool invertebrates in the spring! 🙂
Well, that's gonna do it for today, I hope you all enjoyed this year's posts, happy New Year's eve everybody! 😉
happy new year, dude. i do enjoy your posts and even learn a thing or two from them.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year's! :D Thanks, glad to hear you enjoy the blog!
DeleteHappy New Year's (for the third time :p)!
ReplyDeletePretty dang good success list, too bad that you didn't have an Anallacta methanoides oothecae hatch yesterday or else they could have made the list too. ;)
Really hoping that you have a stroke of luck and can keep the Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" alive in the U.S hobby!
Wishing the best for your collection this year. :)
Haha Happy New Year's, again! XD
DeleteYup, was a great year for my collection, no Anallacta hatching unfortunately but my females are producing lots of ooths, so hopefully I won't have to wait too long until I see some little babies! :D
Thanks, me too! The ooths are dropping like flies though, so I'm not going to get my hopes up. However, a friend of mine might be importing some more for me next year, so it looks like I'll get a second chance! :)
Thanks, right back at you! ;)
What happened with the Alobates? You never told us.
ReplyDeletereminder: one of my last days with wifi access, but comment all you like
I'll dedicate a post to them in the future, but basically I rehoused them, and in doing so kept them much drier than I intended, causing the larvae to die off one by one. I still have one larva, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to rear it to adulthood.
DeleteAdditionally, all subsequent clutches of eggs my females laid after the first molded over for some reason, and they laid them in weird places. My adults are looking a little worse for wear already, so I'm guessing I won't get any more eggs from them, (though I could be wrong).
Happy New Year! thanks for your advice on feeding Pyrophorus larvae the mealworms. I did just that and a day later, unearthed one of the larvae to find it feeding on a mealworm impaled on its mandibles. Do you remove the leftovers after feeding, or do you just let them decompose into the soil? I'm trying not to disturb my grubs too much but on the other hand I don't want a big mite infestation or anything.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year! No problem, glad your Pyrophorus larvae are liking the mealworms! :) Mine don't really seem to leave leftover mealworm pieces, but if they did, I'm sure the Sinella curviseta I have in their enclosures would take care of them.
DeleteIf I were you, I would introduce some spingtails into their enclosures, to clean up any leftovers, and to ward of grain mites, which can be a serious pest of this species.
Thanks for the springtail idea. I may try that. I did notice some mites but they don't seem to be the kind that latch onto the larvae so I'm guessing they're not bothering them too much. In fact, they only seem to show up in the containers that have a fungus gnat infestation, so maybe they are Hypoaspis mites. I'm not very knowledgeable in the mite department. For the pyrophorus larvae, I have them in 100mm. dia. containers with about 60mm of soil. I read in one of your earlier entries that you keep them in much shallower soil, has that worked out well, even with with the biggest larvae, and pupae?
ReplyDeleteRegarding feeding schedule, is there a rule of thumb how many mealworms to give a grub weekly, as related to the grub's size? Right now my grubs are about 45mm long, for reference.
Thanks again for all your advice!
Only grain mites seem to bother them, soil or predatory mites shouldn't harm them at all. :)
DeleteI have had problems with my larvae not being able to find food when the substrate level is too high, not sure why that is. Needless to say, I haven't had any problems with keeping them in rather shallow substrate, I have my small larvae in substrate about an inch deep, and my larger larvae get substrate about 3 inches deep. Might have to up the level to four inches or more if my really large larvae keep growing though...
I've been offering my large larvae about three large mealworms every three days, sometimes they eat them all, sometimes they go untouched.