Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Some More Pterostichus Pictures

I took some more pictures of my adult Pterostichus sp., these guys are still doing pretty well. The isopods I put in their cage have started reproducing, and are doing a good job of eating any leftovers these guys leave. Anyway, here are the pictures!





Their cage
The CB larva are still doing good, they seem pretty hardy compared to other Carabid larva I've reared, which is great! Well, that's it for today, hope you guys enjoyed, and have a great Thanksgiving! :)

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Success with Therea olegrandjeani!

Finally, after 5 or so months of waiting for my oothacae to hatch, I am seeing tiny nymphs in the enclosure! They are TINY, and fuzzy and cute! Here are some pictures of one of the nymphs!





My two adult females are still alive, only one of them is still laying ooths though. Still, there are many oothecae in the substrate that have yet to hatch, so I will be getting a lot of new nymphs over the next few months. Well that's gonna be it for today, hope you guys enjoyed! :)

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Baby It's Cold Outside...

And that means it is time to put any diapause needing invertebrates in the garage, or some other cold place. I have put my Parcoblatta americana and my Gryllus cf. veletis in my garage and will be keeping them there until spring. When in diapause my bugs' metabolisms will slow down, they will eat less and move less. I have given them some rot resistant food, bits of apple and some carrots. I will be keeping them moist, and will replace any food that goes bad, but carrots can take months to rot, so I'm not too concerned about that. Unfortunately, I did not get any good pictures of my P.americana, but I did get some good pictures of one of my Gryllus cf. veletis.

Subadult male Gryllus cf. veletis




Hopefully next year my Gryllus will breed and I can get a second generation going! Hope you guys enjoyed this post! :)

Monday, November 16, 2015

Rotten Wood Progress.

My Traeger sawdust has turned a dark brown since I last updated, and it has gone through many stages of getting moldy, then not, then moldy, then not etc. It still needs to ferment a bit more, but I think its close to done! Here is what it looks like now.


Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, even though it was quite short. I hope to have some better quality posts coming up soon, so stay tuned! :)

Friday, November 13, 2015

Pterostichus larva update

So far the larva are doing great, only one has died so far. The rest are healthy and are eating well. Here are a couple of (poor) pictures of a 4th instar.



These guys hate being photographed, they refuse to sit still and if they have any substrate they will immediately burrow into it. Oh well, what can you do? I hope you guys enjoyed this post, I will see you guys next time! :)

Friday, November 6, 2015

Taiwanese leaf roach update

I recently moved my R.formosana to a bigger cage, due to overcrowding, wing biting and lack of ventilation. They seem to be doing much better in their new setup, which is great! I took some good pictures of them today that I wanted to share with you guys, so here they are.

The new setup
Adult



Nymph

Freshly molted adult

I really like this species, they are very prolific, nice looking, and they really do resemble leaves! Hope you guys enjoy! :)

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

My Pterostichus Breeding Project

My Pterostichus sp. have been laying eggs in their cage, (which I have been separating into small deli containers with moist coconut fiber), and many of those eggs have hatched! I am keeping the larva in a container with many compartments, I got it from a craft store. This enables me to keep many larva in one small space, instead of tons of little deli containers all over the place. They each have a thin layer of moist coconut fiber as a substrate, and they are eating pre-killed mealworms. There are no air holes in their containers, they don't need much ventilation. For a couple of weeks I have been trying to get pictures of the larva, but the first few instars are too small and too squirrelly for my camera to get good pictures, so I had to wait till the third instar or so to get a good picture of one. Here are a couple of pictures!

The egg
The larva
Hopefully I can successfully rear some to adulthood! Hope you guys enjoyed this post! :)