Today's post is not as happy as the others usually are as it deals with hopeful redemption in the aftermath of tragedy, but without giving away more, let's get into things!
Remember this post I made a while back about my pickups at last year's fall Tinley Park NARBC expo? I ended up coming home with a group of free Gyna bisannulata and a something I received through trade - a group of Romalea microptera "Yellow" nymphs. You all know that I did not do particularly well with the G.bisannulata and ended up sending them away, but I never got to do an update on what happened with the lubbers.
In short, I do not have any of the individuals that I brought home from that expo. The vast majority of them died from issues related to molting; I presume that they either fell while trying to complete the process and then got eaten by their tankmates and/or completed the molt well, but were cannibalized while soft. I was not feeding them the correct diet of romaine lettuce (or other decently nutritious greens) and dog food for a while there and so they were looking for sustenance wherever they could find it and I believe that's what led to them taking advantage of fallen/freshly molted individuals before I could even see a body. There were however three individuals that safely made it to adulthood; 2 females and 1 male. They were not the huge and imposing adults that I was expecting, but rather were only slightly larger than the largest Melanoplus differentialis specimens I could find on account of the very poor nutrition they received as nymphs. I thought all of my care gaffes had passed, but I was wrong.
My oldest female died within a flash as I apparently did not get the oviposition materials in there quick enough and she succumbed to egg binding. 😢 Only a month or so after that tragedy, I ran into a problem that I knew was coming all along - the end of Spring heat. Being that my inverts are housed in a room within our attic, things get extra blistering and the invert room was beginning to sit at near 100 degrees consistently. Of course I had turned off the lubbers' heat lamp to make things a bit easier on them, but it was so hot that I was extremely hesitant to go up there to carry out their daily mistings and that's when things went bad. I had noticed the male lubber sitting in the most moist place in the enclosure, the oviposition cup, for a day or two but hadn't thought anything of it. A few days later I noticed that he was lethargic and it finally clicked that he was under the effect of bad dehydration, but it proved to be too late as a few hours after my realization and attempt to save him, he had died. Very soon after, the female started to show considerable lethargy as well and even though she was in much better condition than the male when I had tried to bring him back, she still fell. I know you're all asking why there weren't already safeguards in place for the rising temps, but there was discussion amongst my parents of having the central air conditioning in the bottom portion of the house directed upstairs to the invert room within a considerable time frame. It never ended up happening and I eventually invested in a window air conditioner, but because of the talk of that possible alternative cooling method during that time, I unfortunately hadn't bought one before it was too late for my R.microptera (and many other things in my collection).
BUT WAIT, my adults had not gone before leaving me a few small masses of glimmering hope. Prior to their passings, my female and male had connected up multiple times and my girl had provided two egg cups to work with and three egg masses total! 😀 I have had both egg cups on the chilly ground of my basement to simulate a diapause for over two moths now and they are finally ready to heat up for hatching. Scarily, while going up into the invert room to drop off the egg cups, I realized why it had felt particularly warm recently. A quick reading with my temp gun revealed that it was just about 90 degrees up there! 😮 I looked at the air conditioner and remembered that I had switched it to fan mode on a particularly pleasant day and had forgotten to switch it back to the cooling mode. I'm very lucky to have discovered the problem right then and there as it could have meant a second return of the heat scare and the destruction of my collection all over again. At the time of writing this, I wait for things to cool down in the invert room before introducing the eggs again; things should be fine later today. Anyway, I have amassed some nice photos of my adults over the time that I had them and also got a snapshot of the (hopefully good) egg cups, both of which you can see below.
Here ya go!
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| Freshly molted adult male R.microptera "Yellow" |
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| 1st adult female R.microptera "Yellow" |
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| 1st adult female R.microptera "Yellow" with large nymph |
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| R.microptera "Yellow" adult females eating together |
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| All 3 adult R.microptera "Yellow" |
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| R.microptera "Yellow" egg cups |
And there it is - the perfect picture for this species to make a comeback in my collection! I'll keep everyone up to date on whether these eggs hatch or not; hopefully the former! 🙂 With that said, I'd like to thank everyone for reading another one of my posts, I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures if anything, and until next time, goodbye!
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