Invertebrate Dude: 2025

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Pure Ducky Pictures, Hemilepistus Babies & More!

My Cubaris sp. "Rubber Ducky - 2017" line have been doing great for me, and seem easier (and larger) than the "Blondish" line I had a couple years ago that threw out all sorts of colors (and may have been a different species entirely, as is currently suspected).

Here are a couple pics I shot of them recently:

So glad to have the OG Duckies in my collection, love their consistent coloration and dark grey banding.

Now, in big news for my collection, I've successfully bred Hemilepistus pavlovskii!!! 😁 Unfortunately the smaller of my two females didn't survive over winter, but the larger of the two did, and gave birth some time over the past month or so. I hadn't seen her in a while, so I'm pretty sure she burrowed down and gave birth underground, and likely guarded and cared for the offspring for their first molt or two. I think this is the case, because I only noticed mancae on the surface when they were at least a couple molts into life.

The babies are growing quite quickly, which is great to see, I think there's about 20 of the little things in there. Hopefully they will grow well and provide me with another generation! 🤞

Here are the cuties:

They almost look like baby Porcellio hoffmannseggi in patterning. 😄 I hope I can continue to succeed with this species, time will tell!

My Armadillidium maculatum "Yellow" from Tennyson Kingsley are doing well, I recently started feeding them a beta-carotene rich diet, and their colors are really popping now!

Here are some pictures of one of the largest adults in the culture:

A beautiful morph, and one that's been doing quite well for me. 😄

Lastly, I've been culturing some normal, wild type Armadillidium vulgare from Kuna, ID for a couple years now. They've done well for me, and I just decided to get some pictures of them the other week for fun.

Here they are:

Might not be anywhere near as colorful as most of the other morphs and strains I have of this species, but I like a nice wild type every now and then. 🙂

Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Happy 10 Year Anniversary!!!

Today marks the 10th anniversary for my blog Invertebrate Dude. I can't believe it's already been this long. 😅 The number of species I've worked with over this time has been incredible, as has the number of wonderful hobbyists I have met and talked to, and I am very thankful to everyone who's been a part of my journey in this hobby during that time.

I am excited to see what the future has in store for me, and hope to be here to celebrate a 20th anniversary a decade from now! 😁 Here's hoping for another great 10 years of bug keeping!

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Obsidian Hissers & More Updates!

I am happy to announce that one of my hisser morph projects has proven out, namely Princisia vanwaerebeki "Obsidian". 😁

This is a melanistic morph isolated from the Princisia vanwaerebeki "Big/Black - CCR 2017 Stock" line. That line commonly throws out darker individuals, but seldom ones without any red spots on the thoracic pads, or at least some very faint patterning on the abdominal margins. This "Obsidian" morph I've isolated sports completely black adults, with no other patterning.

Here are some pictures of an adult pair:

Hopefully these will be a popular morph! I am working on another project with this species, line breeding for the opposite coloration; the most abdominal striping and thoracic patterning possible. However that will probably take a lot longer to isolate to a level that I'm satisfied with. 😅

Next up, my Miogryllus saussurei have been doing alright, I realized I never got any pictures of adults though.

So without further delay, here's an adult female:

A cute little species that loves burrowing, hopefully I can make them more readily available in the future, especially seeing as I just rehoused them to a larger enclosure.

My Hyporhicnoda sp. "Venezuela" have not only matured successfully, but have bred for me as well! Seems the key is to just keep them very moist, with a deep substrate.

Here are some pictures of an adult pair:

Male

Female

Hopefully we can finally get these established in the US hobby, would be nice for more of these South American species to be better established here.

Due to some unusual circumstances, last month or so I ended up with 4 adult females of Pseudoglomeris semisulcata. Unfortunately there were no males included, however if they were wild caught as adults (and I assume they were), then there's a nonzero chance that they're mated and could potentially produce offspring. Time will tell, but in the meantime I've set them up in their own enclosure with the hopes of getting lucky.

They are housed in a well ventilated enclosure with a thin layer of coconut fiber topped with coco coir chunks as the substrate. They have some hardwood and cork bark hides, and I'm keeping one third of the setup humid, the rest dry. These are one of three species in the alpine subgenus Glomerexis, and as such I'm keeping them at a cool 70-75F° (I would have provided a diapause but I believe they were already given a pretty harsh one prior to arriving to me). I'm feeding them dog food, artificial pollen, and fresh fruits.

Here are some pictures of one of the larger females:

I really hope I luck out with these, time will tell! 🤞

My current batch of Phortioeca sp. "Tena, Ecuador" have started to mature, which I'm very excited about! Hopefully I will be successful in breeding them this time, fingers crossed!

Here are some pictures of a large adult female I took the other day: