Jerusalem Cricket, Polyphaga saussurei & a Couple Centipede Updates

A couple days ago, the 13th to be exact, I put my male Jerusalem cricket, Tiny, in with another female, Sam. Now I had him in an enclosure with her for almost a week a little while back but saw no breeding activity, so just to make sure I put them both in my breeding enclosure to ensure that the male fertilized her. It was a success, and the male was able to leave a spermatophore for the female.

Here are some images of the mating:

Now, according to David Weissman, the leading expert on Stenopelmatidae, part of the spermatophore dries out and sticks to the female for a 3-4 days, serving as both a physical and olfactory barrier against other males that would try to mate with her. However, just 45 minutes after this mating, I checked on the female and saw no spermatophore. It seems that she most likely dislodged the remnants of it when she tried burrowing into the substrate. Luckily it seems that this should not have any impact on her fertility, as when I told David of this he said he suspected my female was definitely fertilized.

Hopefully I will be able to mate my male with my other females and try to get some eggs out of them!

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My Polyphaga saussurei have been doing pretty good, not much has changed with them since my last post about them, just wanted to share some more pictures I took of my adult today.

Can't wait for her to start laying some oothecae! :)

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My Rhysida sp. "Purple" has been doing pretty good, I have been feeding it fairly often, though not as often as I could be, and it still has not molted. I will be feeding it a little more frequently, as I feel it should have molted in my care by now. It seems to readily accept Parcoblatta americana nymphs and adult males, which I have plenty of.

Here are a few pictures of it:

I am also going to be power feeding my Scolopendra polymorpha, as it has been pretty active on the surface lately and seems relentlessly hungry. No matter how much I feed the sucker I have not noticed any weight gain so far, just today I fed it a large superworm pupa, then when it finished I fed it a superworm pre-pupa, which it eagerly attacked.

Here are some pics of it eating the pre-pupa:

Hopefully I'll start seeing some growth in my centipedes soon!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all next time! :)