Roach's underground

I bought a male and female pair last October. The male died within two months, and I never witnessed any mating. Disappointed, I moved the female's container to the back of a shelf and basically just waited, without doing much else.

In May, while doing my routine container checks, I looked in on her and saw a bunch of small invertebrates. I thought, "Wow, so many springtails, and they're so large!" But when I looked closer, I realized they weren't springtails at all — they were baby polydesmids!!! I can't put into words how shocked I was in that moment. Just think about it, there were over 230 of them! That's when I started searching for literature on their care and life in the wild.

I know this species doesn't breed well in captivity, the babies have a high mortality rate, and more experienced colleagues warned me they probably wouldn't survive more than a couple of molts. I didn't have high hopes, but I did everything I could.

Nevertheless. They now have just 1-3 molts left until adulthood, and there are about 150 of them left. I think that a very good result.