Here is a somewhat pleasant (mis)adventure from several years ago
(Some background: here in arid CA it is never cold enough to snow, although temperatures can drop precariously close on wintery nights; we thus even have katydids year-round)
On the first weekend of Jan 2015 I decided to stop biting my nails over a perceived lack of interesting invertebrates and dig through some forest logs with a large chisel.
It worked, ...somewhat. The logs were almost completely empty of woodborers but I located a wrinkled and surprisingly small ironclad (approx. 1 cm) under a rock.
I put it in a small box with three small pillbugs but it often feigned death for hours when disturbed.
Later I found a few interesting pancake-shaped woodlice in another wooded area. I misidentified them as Trachelipus rathkii after miscounting their lungs.
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| the animals later turned out to be Porcellio dilatatus |
Sometime later I also took home a small (approx. 1 cm) red-anteriored carabid (Calathus ruficollis) for breeding experiments. I failed to find any conspecifics but kept it anyways.
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| This pic makes the front end unnaturally non-glossy and the legs too red |
Unfortunately, arthropods are delicate organisms (despite their resilience). After living with some Zophobas adults for a while, the carabid broke several of its legs mysteriously; I had to relocate it to a small cup of forest woodchips. It lived for a long time in this pathetic state and quietly died in the summer. The Porcellio did well with the pillbugs and later I added some shimmery gray Porcellionides, but due to an under-ventilation error several pillbugs and all Porcellio perished (pillbugs need more fresh air than the others, so presumably they died first and then released poisonous vapors). The small ironclad simply went limp a number of days after capture; in hindsight it probably could not tolerate the moisture desired by the woodlice in its box.
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| (in reality the Porcellionides were not orange, it is just bad lighting) |
Zophobas are vicious beetles, and they often chew legs off of their cagemates, especially those that aren't other Zophobas. Case in point, several years ago I had a tiny Eleodes male that after a year of being kept with my E.hispilabris colony, I decided to house separately with a Zophobas adult once. Next week all of its legs were chewed to stumps... So that's probably what happened to the Carabid. :/
ReplyDeletewell, carabids are very fast runners and adult Z are most certainly not
DeleteI personally suspect that the soil may be a culprit; both the carab and Z highly preferred to walk on bark, rocks, and other solid things and perhaps the carab injured a leg while digging or something
On the other hand, the single big Coniontis gradually lost a suspiciously large quantity of tarsi after Z cohabitation
(will you still be staying around the edges of ento-world despite quitting the hobby?)
That's true, now that I think about it a small Carabid like that would be quite difficult for a Zophobas adult to grab a hold of. (my poor Eleodes male on the other hand was much slower...). The Coniontis may have been a victim of Zophobas aggression though, they are much more their speed.
DeleteWell I kept a Calathus adult on a mix of coconut fiber and sand for a couple years, didn't lose any tarsi or anything until it was quite old, and they do seem to dig under rocks and stuff routinely here in ID, likely to find what little moisture they can in this dry wasteland. :p Perhaps your soil was particularly coarse or something though, who knows.
It's funny, I haven't seen any Calathus in quite a while, but this new development we've moved into has tons of them, keep finding them in the house, as well as some other Carabids and neat Tenebs. I'm guessing it's because the development is so new, and there are still patches of scrubland around here that have yet to be bulldozed. I'm sure in a year from now that will change. :/
(Probably, I'm still fairly active on Bugguide, so I might comment on blogs and such every now and then, not facebook though, I really don't like that platform).
Actually, at least some Calathus are synanthropes: https://www.google.com/amp/s/pterostichini.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/a-real-people-beetle/amp/
DeleteAs for the last part, good to hear! I don't like the Facebook company either; their Instagram software is filled with major glitches and unwanted/missing features despite the complaints of many people
Interesting, I've only seen C.ruficollis in scrubland habitats here, Pterostichus, Harpalus and to a lesser extent Amara spp. are the dominant Carabids in all the urbanized areas where I live, along with many tiny species I have yet to ID.
DeleteYeah, and there's a really negative vibe there, feels like some of the more prominent hobbyists on FB are always just trying to one up each other, debating on who's better at the hobby, who's got a better collection, etc... The forums are much nicer. :)
The Insta community barely seems any better (although I have met a few highly excellent people there); there seems to be a sort of "rush culture" phenomenon. Many users Like things without even reading captions and then repeatedly ask a bunch of stupid questions.
DeleteIn fact, I had to shut down Domino again after we got a ton of Likes and a number of non-entohobbyist followers but very little dynamic, thoughtful interaction. An Eleodes happily bumbling around w a gaping elytral hole should have at least piqued the curiosity of a few dozen out of several hundred visitors (after all, knowledge of beetle molt deformities is not widespread even among "typical" bug hobbyists). However, we failed to even get basic feedback (let alone complex intellectual discussion) from non-friends despite having a special feedback box.
Yeah, that's social media for you. For example, on FB I'd post a lot about certain species and add pictures to the posts, and even though the species names were clearly stated in the posts, I'd get plenty of comments asking "Oooh what species is this?"... -_-
DeleteThat sucks, sorry to hear it. Hopefully if you start it up again you'll have better luck next time! However, Instagram (or any large social media platform for that matter) is usually not the best place to have "complex intellectual discussions", more like the best place for really basic comments and trolls. :/
I refuse to accept campaign defeat just yet (death to Terminix!)
DeleteI wish you good luck to, um, whatever you're busy doing currently too
Haha yes, death to Terminix!
DeleteThanks, I appreciate it! :D