My New Arenivaga sp!!

Yesterday I received a pair of Arenivaga nymphs from a friend in California who collected them in the Algodones Dunes, unfortunately, it seems like they are both males, (they are quite small and thus hard to sex though, so I could be wrong), so I probably won't be breeding them, but it will still be fun keeping them! 😊

Only two species have been reported from the Algodones Dunes, Arenivaga investigata, a somewhat common and widespread species, and Arenivaga darwini, a very rare and very unique species, probably the Arenivaga I want most in this world. As you can probably tell, I'm really hoping it'll be A.darwini, though I'd still love A.investigata as well. I won't be able to tell which species they are until they get a little bigger.

Hopefully they'll do well in my care, I'm flying blind here since I don't know of anyone who has kept any of the California species, but hopefully they won't be too much harder to keep than the other TX/AZ Arenivaga species I have. 🙂

I'm keeping them in a small plastic container filled with a sand and coconut fiber mixture as the substrate with dead leaves on top, I will be keeping one end dry and the other moist, and will also be feeding them dog food occasionally.

Usually you don't want to keep roaches on sand since it is an abrasive substrate that can actually harm many species over time, even most desert species, however these little nymphs were collected in the Algodones Dunes, and according to Heidi Hopkins, the world expert on Arenivaga, both A.darwini and A.investigata are psammophiles, so I'm going to keep these guys on a sandy substrate. Failure to keep psammophiles in a sandy substrate usually results in a quick death.

Anyway, here are some pictures of them:

Hopefully they'll do well for me, can't wait to see which species they end up being!

That's gonna be it for me today guys, hope you all enjoyed, and will see you soon! 😉