Orange is the New White

Hello and welcome. 🙂

"It goes on and on and on and on". That's right, we're doing the same, old isopod thing. 😐 Things are out of sorts in the primary "bug room", so these crustaceous fellows are the easiest things to post about at the moment. Hopefully that'll change soon, but I don't think what'll be featured in terms of isopods will disappoint either. 😉 Let's begin.

This most recent December, within the time frame that Kyle "Happy Roaching" Kandilian was around last, we had been off to a chat per routine. He was interested in collecting as many Armadillidium vulgare locales as he could for genetic-related purposes and I had one at the ready. Almost all of our previous transactions had been in the form of a trade; this one being no different. I had shot almost exclusively for unique species before this, so I thought it was time to mix things up and go for a couple morphs this time around. We shipped and sure enough a box was waiting outside my door shortly after. I unpacked it and was quite pleased to see the group of 10 or so Porcellio scaber "White Out" and sexed pair of Porcellio scaber "Orange Koi" had made it without a scratch! Here's some more on these funky mutations. ⬇

Porcellio scaber "White Out" is a morph of the classic Rough Isopod that lacks all dark pigmentation! This means that individuals are very, very light in coloration - white except for the head and base of the body which can be slightly tannish (getting darker with age). It was isolated by Kyle Kandilian himself from a Dearborn, Michigan bloodline.

I have my rather small colony set-up in a 128 oz. container with around 300 large pinholes in the lid for ventilation. The substrate is a mix of compost soil, topsoil, perlite, and cypress mulch, which I keep moderately moist and at probably an inch in depth. Besides that, I have a few pieces of bark in there for hiding, some dead leaves for hiding/consuming, a moist clump of sphagnum moss for moisture regulation, and a baby carrot and piece of cuttlebone for munching on.

I'm blinded!!! 😵

Large individuals

Medium-sized individuals

Small individual

Mixed-size individuals

Enclosure

Porcellio scaber "Orange Koi" is a morph of the classic Rough Isopod that displays fading blotches of orange and white in immensely varying proportions! The blotches of color have been described as having a water color-like appearance lacking a defined edge and visually differentiating it from "Orange Dalmatian". It was isolated by Alan Grosse from a single specimen belonging to the very old "Spanish Orange" line.

I have these set up in the exact manner as the previously mentioned "White Out", so I'll skip the enclosure description and pictures here.

JUST LIKE THE FISH. 🐠

Larger individuals

Small individuals

Mixed-size individuals

Captive breeding really opens the door to all the wonders that the genetics of these little crustaceans hold and I hope you guys enjoyed reading up on two great examples of this! That'll wrap things up though and I'll meet you right where I always do - next post. 🙂