Let's start with some sad springtail updates. So first off, my Willowsia nigromaculata have become thoroughly infested with Willowsia sp. "Kota Kinabalu"... Which is very unfortunate. I honestly don't know that I'll be able to salvage enough of the nigromaculata to establish a colony again, but I'll do my best.
Secondly, my black Isotomidae from Boise just never took off, and I can't collect them again, so that project is dead in the water. 😢
Thirdly, my Orchesella cincta colony has all but collapsed, mainly due to predatory mites. I then moved my remaining individuals to a smaller deli cup, but didn't give them enough airflow, so despite them doing OK initially and breeding in that setup, one over watering was all it took to bring their numbers back down to half a dozen mixed sizes.
Next up, a more positive update. One of my Gromphadorhina portentosa "LLE Mahogany" females gave birth to a good sized litter! 😁 Said babies are doing quite well and have molted to L2 already.
Weirdly one of the larger females aborted her entire ooth shortly afterwards, and I'm not sure why... 🤔 But in any case most of the females seem super gravid and will probably give birth soon as well, so no big loss there (already they give birth to so many babies per brood! 😅).
Now for another sour update, this time about one of my darklings... Unfortunately I've completely failed with Doyenellus cisteloides. 😭
I gave them a coconut fiber substrate, which the females did eagerly lay in, and I got lots of tiny larvae from them. However, the larvae died very shortly after hatching, and I'm pretty sure they actually needed a rotten wood substrate to survive... Mixing in a bit of rotten wood into the top layer of coconut fiber after I realized this was not enough, and all the offspring sadly perished. Not only that, but all the adults died off too, seemingly of natural causes (I'm pretty sure Helopini live rather short adult lives in general). So, quite a bad mistake on my part, but at least I know better for working with this tribe in the future. 🙁
Another downer update, though not as irreparable as the former. My Nocticola sp. "Malaysia" colony crashed... Because the Coecobrya sp. "Tropical Pink" (ex. Sinella curviseta) that got into their bin outcompeted and essentially wiped them OUT. 🙃 So that's fun. Thankfully there were still some Nocticola in there, so I've isolated them to start a new culture. But yeah it's gonna take a little while to get them going again, and now I have to be diligent not to let springtail populations get too high for them. The joys of roach keeping lol.
But I think that does it for the misc May updates I have that don't warrant pictures being taken. So, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed and learned from this post, stay safe, and I'll see y'all next time! 😉
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