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Jerusalem cricket lifespan?


Hisserdude

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Wow, I'd never even heard of these before, very cool. Are they US natives or are they introduced? Gorgeous creatures!

All the best from Bill. :D

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Wow, I'd never even heard of these before, very cool. Are they US natives or are they introduced? Gorgeous creatures!

All the best from Bill. :D

They are native to North and Central America, very interesting insects, and big too. Thanks! :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I put my mature male an female in with each other, and it was a surprisingly uneventful experience. They just ran away from each other whenever they touched. I left them in with each other for three days, and I removed the male yesterday, both he and the female were unharmed. Don't know if they mated with each other when I wasn't looking, I sure hope so. Will try re-introducing him to her next week.

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  • 1 month later...

Haha, turns out my male, (Jiminy), was not mature when I tried to mate him, he was only a subadult. He molted into an adult recently, as evidenced by the two small black hooks in between his cerci that are only present in mature male Jerusalem crickets.

Here are some pictures of him and his genital hooks:

Jiminy%25231.JPG

Jiminy%25232.JPG

Jiminy%25233.JPG

Genital hooks

Jiminy%25235.JPG

Jiminy%25236.JPG

My other male matured, along with two other females, so now I've got two mature pairs, which I have placed together in their own cages. Hopefully I'll see some breeding action from them and maybe get some eggs out of my females! :D

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, a lot of stuff has happened, which I've described in more depth on my blog, but here I'll just try to condense it down to this; Swirl ate Jiminy, he did not mate with her, Tiny, (my second male), and Sam, (another female), did not harm each other after being in the same cage for a week and I separated them, it does not seem like he mated with her either.

I then tried mating Tiny with a different female, Gap, things didn't go so well and due to both mine and Tiny's stupidity Gap bit him on the back, drawing blood. Tiny recovered and I put him in with a different female, Ripper, which after a long and interesting mating ritual ended very successfully as you can see here:

JCMating%25236.JPG

JCMating%25237.JPG

Hopefully I'll be able to mate him with my other females and get some eggs from them! :D

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Congrats! :) Would be really cool to see some hatchlings of this species.

I agree, hopefully I can get some of my females to oviposit! :)

About three days after that first successful pairing, I put Tiny in with Sam, who he had been in with for about a week in a large enclosure previously, however no mating was ever seen. So, just to ensure that she would be fertile, I paired him up with her in my new breeding enclosure, which also ended successfully, as you can see here:

JCMating%252313.JPG

JCMating%252314.JPG

JCMating%252315.JPG

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  • 3 months later...

Success, I found 12 eggs in Ripper's enclosure and one in Sam's enclosure, though more should follow! Fingers crossed they end up hatching! :D

Here are some pictures of Ripper's eggs:

JCEggs1_zps9uhpnqwv.jpg

JCEggs2_zpsgr8lz2fa.jpg

JCEggs3_zps5fcmwrps.jpg

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1 hour ago, Hisserdude said:

Success, I found 12 eggs in Ripper's enclosure and one in Sam's enclosure, though more should follow! Fingers crossed they end up hatching! :D

Here are some pictures of Ripper's eggs:

JCEggs1_zps9uhpnqwv.jpg

JCEggs2_zpsgr8lz2fa.jpg

JCEggs3_zps5fcmwrps.jpg

A big congrats!:D I haven't even heard of anyone ever getting eggs from these!

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29 minutes ago, All About Insects said:

A big congrats!:D I haven't even heard of anyone ever getting eggs from these!

Thanks! :D Yeah, besides myself I think the only people who have gotten eggs from these are Smokehound714 on Arachnoboards and David Weissman, and the former only got one egg out of his. 

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