Invertebrate Dude: Dark Tigers & Some Misc Updates

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Dark Tigers & Some Misc Updates

My Princisia vanwaerebeki "Tiger" nymphs have been growing well, the two female nymphs may or may not be mature already (hard for me to tell when female hissers are actually mature sometimes), but the male has matured for sure now, and he's a bit on the small side. However, his coloration is quite unusual for pure males, yet his pronotum has the typical shallow notch on the anterior margin that is typical of this phenotype, so I still think this stock is pure.

His mesonotum and metanotum are fringed with red coloration at their posterior margins, and the black stripes on the abdomen are very thick, unusual for this species. He doesn't fit my Pure Hobby Hisser "Key" description of pure stock at all, this phenotype is more variable than I thought, and I'll have to adjust the key as such. If it weren't for the perfectly consistent pronotum structure of this strain, I'd think they were hybrids.

Here are some pictures of this weirdo:

The dark male compared to my large, more normal looking male.

Weird right? So dark for this species, yet still seems to be pure going off of pronotum structure. And yes, my large male still has a genital prolapse, as you can see in those last two pics, the issue refuses to correct itself.
In any case, this has me wondering if I can create a super dark, if not completely black strain of this species overtime, if I keep on selecting for darker and darker individuals... Might have to do that, since I still can't find a single "Black Tiger" strain that is actually pure.

In more somber news, the last of my Hemithyrsocera vittata males died on the 10th of May. They actually lived longer than I thought they would, and the stunted nymph (who also looks male) looks like a subadult now. Still kicking myself about losing my females, but I guess hindsight is 20/20...

So, you know how I had said that my last female Myrmecoblatta wheeleri had died in the last update I wrote about this species? Well I dumped her and her sub into my Macropanesthia rhinoceros enclosure (both of which have molted to L6 now BTW), and much to my surprise she had sprung back to life the next day, and continues to live on in my rhino roach bin. It's one of the bins I have that still has mold pop up occasionally, even though there is lots of microfauna in there, so that's probably why she's still kicking. Doubt she'll reproduce, but thought I'd update y'all, at the very least so I can fully document the longevity of adults of this obscure species.

Oddly enough, my last female Ammopelmatus pictus, the one I thought was a subadult in the last post I made about her? Well, on the 10th of May, I found that she had molted, into what I assume is ACTUALLY her subadult stage... 😂 She's actually as big as my largest adult female was, so she's gonna be the biggest adult female of this species I've ever seen, such a shame I don't have a male for her...

Here are some pics of her in her new skin:

Looking forward to seeing her as an adult. So far the breeding project is not going near as well as I'd hoped, ran into some hurdles incubating the eggs, which I'll wait to elaborate on in a future post. Just wanted to show off this female for now, before she actually matures.

Lastly, my Perisphaerus pygmaeus culture is just booming, after doing a headcount, I can confirm that I went from 10 individuals in November of last year to 90+ individuals, which just goes to show how fast this species can breed if given adequate ventilation, heat and humidity. 😁

Here are some pictures I took while doing a cleanup of my culture, which was necessary considering how much frass and sheds had accumulated in their enclosure, (and that's when I got the headcount):