Farewell (The End of the Blog)

Hello and welcome....for the last time. 😔

Today it is with a heavy heart that I announce the end of this blog. It has been a great run and I will truly never forget eagerly typing up posts here as a fervent, young hobbyist, but it is time for a change.

If I'm being completely honest, I stopped paying attention to the blog years ago, even though I never admitted it. I'm in a new chapter of my life and just can't realistically see myself ever creating long-form content on here like I used to. Rather than leaving everyone in the dark about its future, I figured I'd write this post to leave no questions unanswered.

I will still be updating the sale list regularly and writing up info/care sheets over on Bring on the Bugs: Breakdowns. That is, until I go through with my ultimate plan....

Sometime this year, I hope to open an official Bring on the Bugs website! This website will focus on bringing educational bug content to the public, as well as cultivating the appreciation of these amazing animals in the wild, home landscape, and captive setting. While Blogger definitely has its uses, I did feel increasingly restricted by its format as the years went on and my focus drifted to different types of content creation. A fully customizable website will alleviate these limitations and allow Bring on the Bugs to fully spread its wings. 😊

Well, I guess that's it....

Farewell and thank you for reading over the years. Your support will always be sincerely appreciated. This is not an end, but a new beginning.

I'll catch you on the flipside! ✌

Joshua Campos

Owner of Bring on the Bugs

Happy Valentine's Day 2022!

Happy Valentine's Day! May your valentine love you as much as Grapevine beetles (Pelidnota punctata) love grapevine. 💗

Merry Christmas 2021!

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Merry Christmas from Bring on the Bugs!! This cutey is a fresh adult female Peppered Roach (Archimandrita tessellata) and she wishes you the best holiday cheer! 😊

Happy Halloween 2021!

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Happy Halloween from the spoooky Death's Head Roach, Blaberus craniifer! 🎃 This sharp Blattodean spans across Mexico, Cuba, Florida, Belize, and the Dominican Republic, where it serves as a detritivore, cleaning up and fertilizing the native ecosystem. But most important of all - it has a literal JACK-O'-LANTERN on its pronotum!! 😃

Changing Times

Hello and welcome. 😊

I have a surprise for youuuu. 😁 

Here ya go: 🎁 

Come on, open it! 

🎁💥💥💥!!!

Surprise! "All About Arthropods" is now "Bring on the Bugs!" 

If you didn't expect another name change, I don't blame you one bit. I didn't really even anticipate it myself. 😅 The original reason I changed the brand's title was because "All About Insects" left out a large portion of the animals that I was actually passionate about. "All About Arthropods" fixed that issue perfectly.....but then another arose. While this moniker did sum up the focus of my brand very well, I feel like it also cut out the majority of my potential, and honestly targeted, audience - the laymen. If you approach the average person and say, "I want to teach you about arthropods!", the first thing they'll probably say is, "Get out of my face, you freak!", but if you're able to get past that, they'll ask, "what're arthropods?" I want to eliminate that question. 99 out of 100 times, when people call something a bug, they're referring to some type of arthropod. So, regardless of some slight scientific inaccuracy, the two words are basically interchangeable, and when one of them is virtually nonexistent in popular culture, it seems clear which to use. Fingers crossed this brings some welcomed exposure to my bug education efforts and hopefully you guys don't miss the old name too bad! 

There is also one second little surprise that I'm sure most of you already discovered upon clicking on this post - the blog's theme underwent a massive update! Notable changes include a new background picture, a new blog template, a title picture, an "About Me" page, and clickable social media links (courtesy of my long time buddy, Invertebrate Dude, who's content you should also definitely check out!). All in all, things look much more professional/engaging and I'd say that it was a big success!

In closing, I'd like to leave everybody with a little teaser into one of the most exciting developments in my collection's history, which I will undoubtedly showcase in it's entirety at some point soon. I'll see you next time, but until then, remember to always - look closer. 🔍

Hint: the roachers out there will know what this is 😉

Behind the Screen

Hello and welcome. 🙂

After nearly half a decade on the blog, I realized that I have never actually made a formal post explaining exactly where I came from and what I do. So, here it goes! ⬇️

*a wild Joshua appears*

My name is Joshua Campos and, for as long as I can remember, I have been interested in "bugs." This fascination was not always the strongest, but never disappeared. Then 2014 happened. I was 11 and had recently been accepted to a hybrid school. Since I only had to physically attend once a week, there was finally time to not just skim the surface of my passions, but dive in head first. After a bit of research, I acquired my first official pet arthropods - two female Phyllocrania paradoxa (Ghost Mantis) nymphs!

I continued to keep mantises and mantises alone, eventually compiling about half a dozen species. However, all was not well. Mismolts, bacterial/fungal infections, etc. began to unleash a seemingly unshakeable plague on my little zoo. With the battle clearly lost, I decided to step away from Mantodea and see if the grass was greener elsewhere.

In 2015, I plunged into the unchartered territory of roaches with a male Gromphadorhina oblongonota (Wide-Horn Hisser) nymph. He would live for nearly the next 3 years, but never truly pass. His legacy lives on in every new arthropod that I work with because, if it wasn't for his stability as a pet, who knows just how much longer I would have persisted.

Somewhere along the way, I created a blog to broadcast my experiences keeping and breeding the wee beasties. Posts were only shared with my relatively small community of fellow arthropod enthusiasts at first. Then I had an epiphany. As a lifelong fan of all things buggy, the misinformed hate the general public holds for these tiny beings has always been utterly deafening. What if I extended my reach beyond the confined borders of the arthropod cyberworld and tried changing peoples' minds? There sprouted the real manifestation of "All About Arthropods."

Today, I have the tremendous joy of keeping, breeding, observing, documenting, and spreading appreciation for the most scorned, yet most astounding animals on earth! 🦋🐞🦂🐜🐝🦗🕷️

I'll see you next time and, as always, look closer. 🔍

It Begins

 Hello and welcome. 🙂

(Wow, I haven't typed up those words in a hot minute. 😅)

Today I bring a joyous announcement - All About Arthropods is officially on YouTube!!! This has been a loooong time coming. I initially created the entity in June of 2019, but held off from actually posting anything due to self-imposed quality standards. My thoughts were that it was basically useless to release the slightest smidge of content if it wasn't up to par with what I'd like to be producing in the long run. Eventually I came to my senses and realized that this mindset was only holding me back from kickstarting my channel. Why so much contemplation in the first place though? Well, because YouTube isn't just a hobby for me, it's my dream job. There is something almost inconceivable about being able to do what you love, reaching a nearly limitless audience, AND getting paid for it. I admit, going toe to toe with society's deep-rooted stigmas will be no cakewalk, but you better believe I'll be giving it my all. Arthropods are just too great not to fight for.

With that big news out of the way, I feel a need to address the future of the blog. It is no secret that things have grown rather lifeless in recent years. This has not necessarily been by choice, but more so just the trajectory of life. As the years have went on, I've developed bigger and bigger aspirations and an increasing shortage of free time. That introduces a problem. Call me a perfectionist, but I can NOT press that publish button until each and every facet of a post is *just right*. As a result, many have taken hours or even days to complete. Throw in the emergence of social media outlets that allow me to reach a much larger crowd in much less time and I'm left unable to justify projects like the blog. HOWEVER, this is in no way the end. Even if it's pre-written posts on a monthly or bimonthly basis, I can still confidently say that you will see new content here going forward. 🙂 This was the first place I ever started sharing my love for bugs and it won't be forgotten. 

I'll see you next time and, as always, look closer. 🔍