All the Way from Morocco!

Hello and welcome. 🙂

This year has seen so many isopod acquisitions, it isn't even funny. The stack of new isopod posts awaiting publication could measure as high as the total amount of pancakes I've eaten in my life! That considered, we will follow in the familiar trend today with a beauty from the coast of North Africa. Let's begin.

In mid March of this year, I contacted a friend, Alex Menke, to inquire about one of his isopod species. Once he confirmed my assumptions on them, I knew my heart was dead-set on acquiring a group. 😀 I'm unsure why I hesitated, but I ended up hitting him up again about 2 weeks later asking if he might be interested in trading off a starter-colony. I sent him my availability list and he confirmed that he would indeed be up for a trade, but that he'd get back to me on further details at a later time. I was told when he would be freed-up enough to get into contact again, yet when I reached out, there was no immediate response from the man. Soon after, it was made public that he was dealing with a strong illness. Understandably, this pushed the transaction back another week or so. But at long last, the time had come to send out. Alex's end went first and mine the next day. The box arrived at my door on time and I quickly unboxed to see that all (approximately) 10 Porcellio sp. "Morocco" had made the trip! Let's get into detail about these lil buddies of mine. 😊

Porcellio sp. "Morocco" hails from, as the locality name would suggest, Morocco and has yet to be given a complete identification. It is not nearly as large as many of the Porcellio species that have been making their way to the hobby recently being only about twice as large as their relative, Porcellio scaber. Luckily, they make up for what they lack in size with coloration. The majority of the body is encased in a brownish-purple hue, but things get real exciting when you look at the borders of the isopod, which are adorned in striking orange!

I'm keeping my currently populous colony in a 6 qt. Sterilite container with twelve 1/4" ventilation holes on each end of it and sixteen on each side. The substrate is a mix of compost soil, topsoil, perlite, and cypress mulch, which I keep lightly moist and at a depth of around an inch. Besides that, there's a moist clump of sphagnum moss in one of the corners for moisture regulation, 3 pieces of bark for hiding, some dead leaves for hiding/consuming, and a baby carrot and piece of cuttlebone for munching on.

MOROCCAN MAGNIFICENCE. ⬇️

Large individuals

Smaller individual(s)

Mixed-size individuals

Enclosure

It was my pleasure to share another remarkable isopod species with you. 😊 If you're one of the people that are surely out there hoping I post about something different, you're going to want to make sure you tune in next time. 😉 With that said, I'll meet you right where I always do - next post. 🙂