WarrenB

I have some beech bark for my tesselata, but I can relate. It was collected from a forest park with a planted area of young, healthy trees. There wasn't too much of it lying about. I've started keeping my posticus with cut and scored plastic pipe, seen here: But I hazard a guess it's not exactly the aesthetics you're aiming for.

I caught this newly emerged adult lounging about last night.

I need to clean out my duesta in a week or so, to up-ventilate and de-mite. I've been wondering the same thing.

Shoot, I was thinking of getting some as a CUC. Better to use springtails or something else?

Woah! Looks a bit like a slime mould. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/outreach/slimemold/care/ (Nice Therea)

I haven't tried it yet, so no clue. From what I've heard, the sheer concentration of sugar has a preservative effect (like jam and jelly conserves) and the addition of honey doesn't hurt either. Youtubers store it in the fridge or even the freezer. I'm just idly wondering if it's worth making in bulk, because that pot got licked squeaky-clean in a couple of hours. But it'd still just be a supplement rather than a staple.

Heh, those are two genera I was planning to expand my arboreal experience with! As far as I know (which is what other people have said) Panchlora nymphs burrow, the adults will be visible, and all stages of Hemithyrsocera will be visible. Check out @Martin's blog post about H. vittata, especially what they're doing in the photos at the bottom. https://www.thewildmartin.com/active-blog/hemithyrsocera-vittata-the-gold-banded-clown-roach

I don't have the experience with many different arboreal species, but I have my Oxyhaloa duesta in a very similar-sounding container. They're usually out in the open, chilling out on twigs and bark, don't seem to burrow at all.

Beetle jelly and £27/kg Tetra pond pellets. 🤨 I've mentioned already, my orange heads - and other roaches - are looking a bit picky about their food these days. But stick in a pot of beetle jelly and they've already gnawed big holes in it, after a couple of minutes. That alone has made me think about following some of the jelly recipes on youtube, though maybe with a bit more nutrition and not quite so much sugar. Also, to the right you'll see Supa pond pellets, a cheaper alternative to the Tetra pellets that ran out a couple of weeks ago. Out of shot are some nuggets of dry dog food. Waiting to see which disappears first.

Hello Dysopods! 😆 I can relate.

Glad it's working out! I don't know if 'soft and moist' is foolproof, though. I've got two types of melon receiving a lukewarm response, currently. Maybe I should pick up a cucumber or two...

I should've paid more attention to this topic. Bag of rabbit nuggets, alfalfa listed as first ingredient. Everything nibbled them at the start, now they all turn up their noses. Even my morio culture isn't impressed. And they mould quickly when they go uneaten, too... They eat it as part of a 'porridge' with more palatable ingredients, but that's a bit less convenient than throwing in dry nuggets. I have most of a bag of pond sticks left - what the rabbit food was meant to replace, as a lower protein staple - but I think I'll look at dog food after it's all done.

I'm currently gathering and preparing containers for new colonies, in anticipation of the spring and of people willing to ship me live insects again. Some of the roaches I have in mind (listed in the 2022 ambitions thread) seem a bit escape-prone compared to what I've already kept, so I've been thinking of ways to make sure they stay contained. One of these is a feeding/maintenance hatch, that would lessen the need to pull the whole lid off the container, every time. I like the idea of the flip-up feeding hatches that the Spider Shop sells, but at 30mm diameter they seem good for a single cricket, less so for introducing or retrieving piles of veggies. I can't find anything bigger with a similar flip-up function, apart from bulky rifle scope covers. Anything that screws open or friction fits feels like it might loosen the half embedded in the container, over time. (Though that's probably me being paranoid again.) Then I stumbled past something I'm already familiar with: camera lens caps. The type that clamps against the inside edge at the end of the lens housing. Here's a test of my 52mm cap (guess the brand) in a ~51mm hole, cut into a piece of scrap food container. (A little thinner than Braplast containers) It's nicely snug and holds on pretty firmly. A big tarantula might be able to force it out, but not a bunch of tiny roaches. Maybe some infinitesimal climbing nymphs (like, knee-high to a fruit fly) might be able to squeeze through the gaps in the mechanism, but I don't know. I'd have to let them try, first. Also, not quite sure how it'd grip into thicker plastic, as of yet. Off-brand replacement lens caps look to be pretty cheap on ebay, a couple of £ for sizes up to 82mm, 3 1/4" diameter. The 'side pinch' types seem a lot less convoluted than the 'centre pinch' types, like mine here.

I experiment with most things, barring brassicas and peas. Tried them with mushrooms recently, too. They loved them. They're fond of apple and sweetcorn also. But I'm still trying to get them onto carrots. Especially when the supermarkets here had them (and parsnips, and other things) marked down to mere pennies before Christmas!

Not dubias, but it's a struggle to get any of my roaches - particular my E. posticus - interested in plain old fresh, chopped carrots. The other night I threw in some leftover tinned baby carrots and they were a lot more popular. Ditto with duestas. Maybe because they were softer, and had a higher water content?

Thanks! I caught one of the males doing a bit of buttwaggling in her direction, so hopefully the patter of tiny tarsal claws in... ... six months? Shoot. 😆

My favourite one was the only one I ever kept! I can't even remember the species. Damon, maybe? I vaguely recall picking it up at the one British Tarantula Society show I attended. I definitely remember it was one of the fastest things I ever kept, and I've had teleporting huntsmen and pokies. I always liked amblypygids, the way they look so different from other, more familiar arachnids. I may pick up another one or two if I ever get an invert room up and running. I need the space I currently have for cockroaches...

Hello!

This moult went a lot better! I removed the female nymphs to a tall 11 litre canister, and ordered one of those 'hi-power' heat mats to bump up the degrees. Turns out the latter wasn't really necessary when the smaller container size itself allowed the 15 watt mats to raise the temp to a more comfortable 75-77°F. Anyway. I found this girl behind the bark when I was feeding my small menagerie today. Result! I'll give her another day or two before I put her back in the main tub, and stick a bigger mat on that. Thanks for the pointers, HD!

Hello!

All this is encouraging. The venom morph is the first potential pest species I've considered keeping, and I wondered if I was entirely wise. Especially after searching through a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth on another board... What, completely airtight? Blimey.

What a set of of photos - these and the others posted today. Respect, sir.

👍 I'm on it.

I've mentioned before, I used to keep Archimandrita tesselata years ago. Second time around, they were very hard to find, and I'm trying to make a point of breeding them. I started with twelve nymphs last year. One moulted to maturity on it's way to me, and died a day later. Three nymphs died for reasons unknown. Guessed at, but unknown. After reading @Hisserdude's blog and the Roachcrossing species guide, I figured I had been a complete dunce regarding their setup. (Nevertheless, four successfully made it to adulthood in those subpar conditions) A couple of weeks ago I moved them to an improved enclosure: more ventilation, more vertical height and surfaces. Then yesterday morning, I found this: It looks like this one moulted cleanly and then... just gave up. I don't know what happened. I keep them in a 20 litre storage box with 1.5-2 inches of Bugznbits premium millipede and woodlice substrate, which seems legit. Also baked oak and beech litter and beech bark, from a forest that I'm pretty sure is far enough away from any agricultural pesticides. (My Oxyhoala duesta have been devouring the stuff with no ill effects) Fed on pond pellets and various fruit & veg, though they're kind of picky eaters. The thing I'm least sure about is the heating, particularly in this season. I have a 15W heat mat on one side of the box that just about keeps that warm end hovering about 19-21°C (65-70°F) on a cold night. And this unfortunate individual was flat on the ground, pressed up against the cold side. It doesn't seem to slow down the four adults, but do I need to up the ante? I have seven left, almost half my starting number, which is a little frustrating and embarassing. After this incident I finally tried to sex what I have, and as luck would have it, as far as I can tell, the four adults are male and the three remaining nymphs (two large, one stumpy) are female. (The recent death seems like it would have been my first adult female too) I'm tempted to separate the latter and 'hothouse' them, both to speed their growth and make sure they aren't keeling over from the chilly irish climate, though I haven't tried this before, and I wonder if it'd be a rash move based on panic and overthinking things. I managed to breed these before without even trying. Now that I'm trying...

Nice. They look like trilobites, especially with the two dark spots on the pronotum.