First off, my Panchlora sp. "Guadeloupe". For whatever reason, I only got 2 broods from my last generation, out of maybe 5-6 females... Which is abysmal. Most of those nymphs have now matured, besides two enormous subadult females that sadly may not mature before my last couple males die off... Anyways, none of my current mated, adult females look particularly gravid, and I'm concerned I might not even get another generation out of them... Which would really suck.
Not 100% sure why they're tanking, but to be safe I just moved them to a smaller enclosure in an attempt to get the allee effect going. They had a TON of springtails in their last setup, which may have been stressing them out, so we'll see how they do in this more simplistic setup, with less microfauna and fresher substrate... Fingers crossed they pull through and give birth to a few good broods. 🤞
Next up, some Perisphaerinae woes.
For whatever reason, my Perisphaerus pygmaeus have not given me consistent broods since late 2020/early 2021. I'm left with around 15 adult females, and half a dozen nymphs that were born from a single brood in February of this year. Not sure what's going on, as the females are all for sure mated, but last year I had quite a few abort their ooths on me for seemingly no reason.
A lot of the current females seem quite gravid, and so I'm optimistic that I'll get more broods soon, but it's all looking rather precarious ATM. I did just revamp their setup, replacing the substrate and old bark hides, and gave them some hole ridden rotten wood chunks to nest in (which a lot of the females instantly hid inside). So, we'll see if that does anything.
Speaking of Perisphaerus, let's talk about my sp. "Kota Kinabalu". Unfortunately, I believe all three broods I got were premature stress broods, and most of my adult females died within several months after the last brood. Most of the nymphs from all three broods died (as is normal for stress broods from Perisphaerinae), however I've got 7-8 nymphs of varying sizes that seem to have stabilized and are doing well, and now growing at a decent rate.
Unfortunately, this seems to be one of the species where males grow quite fast compared to the females... And, just in case they're one of the species where males live only a month or so, I've isolated three of the male nymphs to their own enclosure, and will be keeping them rather cool to slow them down a bit. My female nymphs are growing at a decent rate now and will hopefully mature ASAP, I did also leave one male nymph in with them that appears to already be a subadult. The reason being, not only would I like to see what an adult male looks like sooner rather than later (as well as test just how long they live), but a couple of the original WC adult females are alive and well, just not gravid looking, and may need another mating to produce more broods... So we'll see if I can get them paired up soon and maybe get some healthier broods from them. So yeah, the colony is in a bit of a precarious position, but I remain optimistic that I can get another generation going.
My Bantua robusta "Namibia" on the other hand, are almost certainly gonna go kaput on me, I don't think I've bred them since 2020. My original colony all but died out on me, and so I got some more from Kyle late last year. However, all of those matured (mostly into females), and then over the next few months I got to watch pretty much all of them abort their entire ooths for seemingly no reason. 🙃😭 Really not sure what went wrong, I've been keeping them as I have in the past, but yeah, depressing.
Anyways, they seem to be all healthy and doing OK for me now, and a lot of my females are starting to plump up a bit and are hopefully reforming ooths. Will they abort said ooths? Who knows? 🤷 Guess I'll have to find out and see. The most frustrating thing is, if they breed for me now, I won't know what I did right... 🙃😂
Lastly, my Pseudoglomeris tarsalis. For some reason, a lot of my females matured, and then either aborted their ooths, or just refused to give birth until they died... And quite a few died prematurely. Not 100% sure why, but I think excessive springtail/nematode populations may have had a lot to do with it, plus the very male heavy sex ratio... So, I'm down to two females, plus a bunch of adult males (which compared to the females seem immortal... 😒). I've isolated the remaining females to a more simplistic setup, with much less springtails and no males to pester them. I am hoping I can get a brood out of at least one of them, one of the females is super gravid looking, the other not so much... So we'll see. 🤞
Next up, a Hemithyrsocera vittata update. So far no babies, and after rehousing the culture I only found a few ooths in the substrate, most of which were rather small... It seems like they're not laying much, and with four young, mated females, that's not the best sign. 🙁 Some of the females are starting to look a little older now, so there's a lot riding on them doing well for me. One possible reason for a lack of reproduction may be because of the high ventilation causing the top layer and hides of the enclosure to dry out too much in between waterings... So I'll try misting them daily now, and see if that works better for them. Bit worried about them, but hopefully I'm just being paranoid, and they've actually been laying more than I thought. 😅
Lastly, an update on my Anallacta methanoides. Most the nymphs Ty sent me matured in the past several months, and I did get a few ooths from them initially. However, the enclosure became completely infested with nematodes, which seem to have had a bad affect on them, causing several adults to die prematurely due to stress. So, I rehoused them to a fresh setup, and salvaged the three or so ooths I could find. Hopefully the remaining adults will recover from the stress of their nematode infestation, and produce more viable ooths for me in the new setup. I also gave them some more ventilation, since I think I was keeping them just a little too stuffy for their taste. So, we'll see how the colony does from here on out, hopefully I won't have to get yet another starter colony from Ty/Kyle... 😅🙃
Anyways, that does it for today's sorta bummer update post. Hope this proved informative to some of you, thanks for reading, stay safe, stay buggy, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
Thank you for sharing your hardships. They are definitely a valuable source of information and great insights to our own sometimes failing colonies. My Hemithyrsocera vittata colony was also doing poorly if you remember? I adopted a flood method. So once a week I started to flood the bottom for the enclosure and that was when all the nymphs started to hatch ! Now the colony is getting their second round of adults already 🥰 thanks to you
ReplyDeleteYeah, it also helps me keep track of how I used to keep species, so that in the future when I try again I can remember what went wrong. 😅
DeleteI do remember that. However, if anything I might be keeping mine too humid, I basically never let the substrate dry out, sometimes it's moist, other times soaking wet... I'm wondering if I should actually be keeping them a bit dryer now... IDK.