Motyxia Eggs!!! (And a Small Dorylaea orini Update)

A few days ago I found my largest Motyxia female dead, which made me pretty upset. With only one millipede left, I decided to dig around the substrate a bit in search of eggs, particularly around areas they had previously been digging in. After a little searching I accidentally dug into a clump of eggs!!!

There was no wall around the eggs made of frass or anything, just looks like the female dig a hole, laid a bunch of eggs in it and covered it back up. I did not count how many eggs there were, but there were a lot, and in this paper they stated egg clumps of M.sequoiae can contain anywhere from 70 to 165 eggs, so I'll bet there are quite a few eggs in that chamber! Just so everyone knows, I've been keeping this species at a relatively low temperature, about 73 Fahrenheit.

As far as I know I am the first of the people keeping this species to report eggs, hopefully others will find eggs in their enclosures soon too!

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the eggs, the pictures aren't the best quality but I don't want to bother the eggs anymore than I already have to get better pictures:

I will definitely keep you guys updated on these, I really hope they hatch for me!

---

So I checked on my Dorylaea orini today, and discovered something rather upsetting.... all four of mine are female. :( Looks like I'll need to get a male soon.

Well that's going to be it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all next post! :)

Assassin Bug and Roach Updates (Really Picture Heavy!)

My adult female Melanolestes picipes died the other day, RIP. It seems my female ate quite a few of her eggs unfortunately, hopefully there are a few that she did not get to, since I would like a higher amount of nymphs.

I have 6 nymphs that are doing well, and another that may be at death's door. A few of the nymphs have molted to the 2nd instar, and they have gained a considerable amount of size.

Here are some pictures of one:

The shed

The nymph

All the nymphs have been feeding well on small Pycnoscelus surinamensis nymphs that have had their heads smashed, and they will apparently tackle prey almost twice their size if hungry.
Hopefully I will get some of these to mature, would love to get a colony of these going!

---

My largest Corydidarum pygmaea nymph has molted into what I believe is an adult female, so I now have an adult pair of this species! Hopefully they'll mate, I can't wait to see some babies!

Here she is:

Another female is close behind, and there seem to be one or two subadult males. I will keep you all updated on these cool little roaches.

---

Here's some really exciting news, two of my Dorylaea orini have matured!! They look so cool, I really hope they will breed well for me! I believe they are both females, though I could be wrong.

Here are some pictures of them:

Here you can kinda see just how long the antenna are

I'm so happy these are starting to mature, the other two nymphs are close behind, so soon all of mine will be adults!

---

My Gyna lurida have been doing very well, and several more have matured. By the way, I have found that their reputation for being a skittish species is completely justified, while I have not seen mine fly they have darted out of the enclosure a few times, these guys are fast as lightning!! Luckily I'm faster, as none of them have actually escaped... yet.

Anyway, here is are some pictures of one particularly attractive female, she's almost white in coloration, and no, she is not teneral:

I have adults of both sexes now, so hopefully I'll be seeing babies pretty soon, and a lot of them!!

---

My Panchlora sp. "White" have been doing OK, no babies yet. Even though nothing of note has happened with them, I really REALLY love this species, so I took some more pictures of the males. :)

Hmmmm.... I'm beginning to wonder if I should have split this into like, two posts instead of one really big one... Oh well, you know what they say, "go big or go home"! ;)

---

Last time I showed off my Pycnoscelus sp. "Thailand", I photographed one of the individuals that looks pretty much exactly like a P.surinamensis. Now let me show you what many of the other adults in my colony look like.

Much darker, right? Plus the wings are really short. It kinda looks like a Pycnoscelus nigra, however it is more of a dark grey color than black. Plus the legs are not as vibrant of an orange color as they are on P.nigra. This really does seem to be a different species than the other Pycnoscelus in the hobby, and can't be a hybrid since these are parthenogenic.

Anyway, that's gonna be it for today, I hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next post! :)

Some Random Roach, Millipede, Cricket & Beetle Updates

This blog post is about a bunch of random stuff that needs updating, hope you guys enjoy it! :)

My new Pseudomops that I got the other day are doing fine, and I thought I'd show some pictures of them!

Here's a female that is pretty messed up looking, I've affectionately named her "BP", aka "Broken Pseudomops"

Here's an adult male, this guy is a nice light brown instead of black

And here is one of my new females carrying an ootheca

Hopefully these WC ones will do better than the stock I received from Roachcrossing, they already seem much more prolific!

---

The Byrsotria fumigata male I got from Roachcrossing has finally matured, and I thought I'd show some pictures of him:

I love his smooth, sleek appearance, hopefully he will live a decent amount of time for me!

---

My Gromphadorhina sp. "Hybrid" colony has been doing very well, and many of the nymphs have matured! For the most part it seems males have been maturing, but a few small females seem to have matured as well. 

Here are some pictures of a mature male on my hand:

Gotta love hissers, even hybrids. I absolutely love the horns on the males!

---

Now let's talk about some of my millipedes. 

My Motyxia cf. tiemanni male died yesterday, he was a bit sickly looking since he arrived, so I was expecting him to be towards the end of his life cycle. The two females seem fine though, I recently added a clump of moss to the container and they love hiding under it. So far no signs of burrowing, but they don't seem to be a burrowing species. However they do seem to construct egg chambers underground, so hopefully these females will start showing some signs of digging soon.

My Oxidus gracilis are doing very well, seems like the previous ones I had laid some eggs in my care, as there are tons of tiny little pedelings crawling around the container! Couldn't get pictures of the tiny little things, so you'll just have to take my word for it. ;)

And finally, my bristly millipedes, Polyxenus sp., have been doing decently well, still no signs of reproduction though. I took some pictures of them a while back that I never posted on this blog, so I'll post them here now:

---

I just wanted to say that I let my Gryllus cf. veletis go a while back so I could make room for some new inverts, I would like to point out however that there were a bunch of hatchlings in their container, so I was successful in breeding them! Maybe one day I'll catch some more and try breeding them again, but for now there are other invertebrates that I would rather be keeping. 

---

My Ciliate dune beetles, Coelus ciliatus have been doing very well and have produced a bunch of larva, which seem to be growing at a decent rate. Can't wait to see what the pupa of this species looks like, pupa are one of my favorite darkling beetle stages, they just look so unusual.

Here are some pictures of the larva:

My closely related Eusattus muricatus have been doing OK, the adults seem to have a really short lifespan, it seems that all but one or two of my adults have passed away. I don't know if it's due to improper care, or if they are just short lived. In their natural habitat you can always find a bunch of dead ones, so maybe they are just naturally short lived beetles. 

Anyway, they did produce some larva, which seem to be doing alright, I hardly see them but I don't know if that's because they have a large enclosure for their size with deep substrate, or because many of them have died off.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of one the other day, you can see the similarity between the larva of this species and Coelus:

Hopefully I will be able to rear some of these to adulthood, I really like the round, bloated appearance of the adults. 

Anyway, that's gonna do it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all next post! :)