Beetles, grubies and roachies~!

As promised, here is a picture of Clidia and Pebsi~! 🌺 They have grown quite a lot since I first got them a month ago, remember how small they were? 

As you know, I have terrariums. But we will be focusing on my biggest one I have.

I didn’t turn on the brightest lights of my terrarium as it is night time already when I’m writing this post. But if you didn’t know, there is a little ecosystem going on in this one, everything is real plants and some of the critters I have there have mostly come along with the moss I bought from pet shop and perhaps with that log of wood too I have in there. 

The main residents currently, besides my ugandan beetle Koby, are little Cupboard spiders (Steatoda grossa), little slugs which I’m not sure what species they are and couple Greenhouse millipedes (Oxidus gracilis)! There is also few earthworms and springtails, the fungus gnats have found their way into the terrarium too. There is also other small critters looking similar to springtails, but I can’t recognize what they are...  ((There they are, on a melon piece along with young slug in the picture below. They really like melon huhh.))

So, a little ecosystem has already taken it’s place in my terrarium on it’s own!

When it comes to the spiders there is at least 5 of them, with one confirmed to be a female! I will eagerly wait to see if there is going to be more spiders in future since I like spiders and they are helpful to keep the gnat population in control as they eat the gnats.  Springtails + those little dark critters, millipedes and earthworms keep the things tidy there, eating away the decaying matter. Slugs also do that so yeah this terrarium is gonna stay nice and tidy!  Also there is 3 confirmed slugs, but I’m pretty sure there is more of them hidden away somewhere.

What comes to Koby, well, he isn’t active yet. He is most likely hiding under the piece of wood. He will come out whenever he feels ready. 

And that’s all I have to say for now about my biggest terrarium! 

And became bigger!

🌼So everyone, here is Koby!🌼

Let me tell a bit about how I got him. At one point I bought 3 grubies of the ugandan beetle ((with 1 already being in cocoon)) in hopes for one of them to be female and partner to Baba, but as you know Baba passed away before that could happen. 

And now, there is he! This is the one who came out of the cocoon with a lovely blue & orange colour combination. He is still not the most active yet, but I had to take him out and patch up that hole on their elytra. Now I don’t need to worry about water getting directly to the wing when I mist or some substrate getting stuck in it when digging around since the purpose for that elytra is to protect the wings. So you can imagine the hole is no good in this case.  Let me tell you though, he was not happy with me poking around.

🥀Today, 12th of July 2019, big boy Baba has passed away.🥀

While it is sad this happened and before I could get him a mate, I was expecting this to happen after he began to slow down and have trouble moving around. Looks like his time to go was today. 

So, I found this little guy from my terrarium, with my big beetle boy both of them on top of his watermelon slice.

If you ever wondered how underside of a beetle looks like... 

New additions to the beetle family~! ☀️

So... Today I discovered that I had accidentally lead ten of my grubies to death and I think I know the reason how this happened. What was the cause. 

I am sad, but, now I know better.  I’ve learned from the experience, took my time to cry it out and now I’ll take better care of the future grubies that will come to my life. 

The leafy babies weren’t the only thing I bought from pet shop!  So this is Crany, one of the three Mecynorrhina Torquata Ugandensis grubies I bought ((one of them is actually in a cocoon atm!)). 

Reason for their name;  they crane back a lot. 

Say hello to newest additions to my lil bug family~! 🌼✨

Here is little update on the colourful new fella! 🌼 

Yes, their new enclosure is smaller than the little box I gave them, but since I noticed how much this little fella liked to be at air gaps I made them this. Put holes all around to allow air to come from all directions. 

Had to check the substrate for new grubies, so you know what that means? 

SO here is the newest addition in their little boxy box~! 🌻 I actually talked about this fella a bit on my main blog.

This species of bug is called as Rainbow Shield Bug ((Calidea Dregii Germar)) and comes from Africa, in this little fella’s case they literally come from Africa!  As I work in a flower shop and their flowers come from different countries this fella managed to slip in with the flowers so that’s how they ended up to me (since we can’t keep this fella in flower shop). 

What I have found out is that this species feeds and breeds on a wide variety of plants and is also a pest of cotton, sorghum and sunflower.