Friday, February 3, 2017

New Ootheca, Babies, and Larvae + M.contracta Development!

Hi Everyone!
Glad to officially be back after studying hard for and taking my semester finals this week. My bugs just won't slow down, it seems like they keep changing everyday! So with the mass amount of updates, I'll be separating out everything between this post and the next two. Now let's just hope nothing new happens before then. LOL
I'll start with my P.pennsylvanica and go on from there.
Well, my female just produced her first ootheca and a very large one at that! Unfortunately, I only got pictures when she was just starting to form the ootheca, so you guys really can't see how large it ended up being, but trust me, it was massive! Despite its size, she must have hidden it very well because I no longer can locate it. LOL
Anyway, here's a couple photos of her carrying it.

Adult female P.pennsylvanica with ootheca
Now let's move onto my Therea olegrandjeani.
As you can probably guess, I just got my first batch of babies! I took some time to count them and there seems to be approximately fifty five with a couple more oothecae left to hatch! Needless to say I'm very happy with all the little guys! However, right now they are only the size of my Sinella curviseta so I wasn't able to get many decent pics of them, but I did get one.
Here's a pic of one of my fuzzy babies! :)
First instar T.olegrandjeani nymph
Next, let's talk about my new tenebrionid larvae.
Recently, I was given the opportunity to work with the odd and bulbous (adult females) Eleodes goryi through the extremely generous gift of thirty larvae from Eli Morton AKA lovebugfarm on various arthropod forums. Thanks a ton Eli! The larvae of this species are darker in color than most Eleodes and flip violently when handled! I'm keeping them in my old E.sinensis"White Eye" enclosure with a slightly moist substrate mix of coconut fiber, dead leaves, and small chunks of rotten wood.
Here's a couple photos of them!


E.goryi larvae
Let's end with my Meracantha contracta.
Well, if you read the comments on my last post you already know this, but a couple days ago I checked on my M.contracta larvae to find that one of my larger larvae had developed into a pre-pupa and the other into a pupa! The key words in that last sentence were "a couple days ago" because I actually just checked on them again today and noticed that the one that was a pre-pupa has now also molted into a pupa! I'm very glad that they are all developing well, now I'm just hoping that my smallest larva will catch up to the other guys at adulthood, not too sure about my chances of having a pair with only two adults. Unfortunately, the camera I use is acting funny so I wasn't able to get any pictures of the new pupa, but I did get some of other pupa so I'll just share them here along with the pre-pupa(who just molted into a pupa).
Here they are!


M.contracta pre-pupa



M.contracta pupa
Hope all of you enjoyed this update-crammed post and if you want to hear about the rest of them, check out my next two post! Peace out. :)

3 comments:

  1. Hey, were you ever successful in breeding the Meracantha? My female has produced a lot of eggs, many of which have hatched, just wondering if you have had similar luck or not.

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  2. Unfortunately no. :( I suspect my two adults were of the same sex since I never saw any breeding or egg-laying behavior at all.

    All I have right now is that first larva I collected last year, which amazingly hasn't seemed to grow at all! :(

    Congrats with yours, glad to see that someone is currently breeding them! :D BTW how was Tyler able to determine the sex of the ones he sent you?

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    Replies
    1. Dang, that sucks, sorry to hear that. :(

      Thanks! The male was quite a bit smaller and more slender than the female, by themselves it may be hard to sex them, but together the difference is pretty obvious.

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