#pet bugs

Nutmeg is on the ceiling. of course.

and Paprika is out for a morning stroll!

the first is Nutmeg! last time i posted about him, he was still just a little nymph, but hes all grown up now! heres a pic of him enjoying some veggies!:

hes a huge goof who LOVES hanging out on the ceiling, lmao. hes up there right now, actually.

hes almost always up there when i check on him, ahaha. lil dude just loves to climb.

my other friend was still unnamed last time i posted, and was still just a speck! he, too, is all grown up now. im happy to finally have a chance to formally introduce Paprika!

hes much more shy than Nutmeg, and usually prefers to stay hidden in his cereal box or under his tp tube, but sometimes i’ll find him enjoying his climbing wall, or even the ceiling! regardless, as long as he’s happy, i am too, even if hed prefer to stay out of sight!

i like calling these two The Spice Boys 💃🏻

unfortunately, Halfpipe, Handkerchief, and Broccolini are all no longer with us :( thats always the sad part of keeping sprickets as pets; their lifespans are so tragically short. my dear Spice Boys are both approaching their one year Catchaversaries even, so who knows how much time we have left together. still, as tragic as the goodbyes are, the joy of watching these nervous little beans grow up healthy and happy makes it all worth it. theres a reason ive been doing this for three and a half years now.

as far as physical differences from my usual sprickets go, besides his stunning markings, i think the biggest difference ive noticed is, well… hes BIG.

like. this boy is ENORMOUS. he makes my adult T. asynamorus boys look like growing nymphs! i felt so bad keeping him cooped up in that tiny temporary tank for a day!

thankfully, hes all set up in his new home and, after about 2.5 hours of sitting on the floor in front of his tank waiting, i finally got to see him come out of the tube i used to move him! he went right for the food, ahaha.

GOD hes beautiful… hes like a clouded leopard, or a king cheetah! i really hope i find more of these guys in the future :,)

its also interesting that hes munching betta food pellets in that pic! ive offered them to my sprickets before, but i dont think ive ever seen anyone take much interest in them before now. i treated him to the full dry food buffet (cricket chow, bloodworms, betta pellets, dried baby shrimps), as i thought itd be interesting to see if D. japanica has different food preferences. he annihilated the bloodworms i left him with last night, so he deffo likes those too (theyre a favorite of my T. asynamorus buddies), but its cool to see someone finally go for those pellets. hey, if he keeps eating them, ill keep offering them!

ive GOTTA show you a pic of him from above though. look at THIS:

i just… MAN. i know i keep saying it, but i can NOT get over how gorgeous his markings are!!!

he hasnt done a ton of exploring yet (hes staying very still near his food tray as i type this), probably because i just reached in and removed the tube i transported him in and hes nervous about catching a predator’s attention by moving, but hopefully he’ll feel at ease enough to look around as the night goes on, especially once i turn all the lights off!

BUT… im back with VERY exciting news.

so last night, while i was chatting with a friend, Wembley started chasing something which, upon further investigation, turned out to be a spricket! this alone was exciting to me, because its been ages since ive seen any around the apartment, but it became even more exciting once i caught the poor fellow and got a chance to get a better look at him.

this guy had the most beautiful markings id ever seen on a spricket. big, beautiful, BOLD spots and stripes all over his otherwise light colored body.

upon some reflection, however, i realized i HAD seen markings like his before, never in person, but in pictures, way back when i was first trying to figure out what those giant, round crickets were the first time i spotted a spricket in my apartment.

and, friends, this beautiful fellow is NOT one of my beloved greenhouse camel crickets, aka Tachycines asymamorus.

hes a japanese camel cricket, Diestrammena japanica!

much like T. asynamorus, D. japanica is also invasive to the united states. however, while T. asynamorus has become a common sight all over the eastern half of the country, D. japanica is far less common, almost entirely seen in the northeast, with NYC as the “epicenter” of its invasive range.

looking at the observation map of D. japanica on iNaturalist, it seems like these guys are far more common on the western half of Long Island than they are on the eastern half where i live, so i suppose its not terribly surprising that this is my first time spotting one.

luckily, despite being a different species than my usual sprickets, i see no reason why this guy should require sigificantly different care. just like T. asynamorus, D. japanica is a dark- loving, humidity- loving, opportunistic scavenger who will eat just about any organic matter they stumble upon, so ive set him up in the same type of enclosure i provide for all my sprickets!

This post includes mentions of cruelty towards animals and their owners.

Depressing. No, not because of their lifespans. I think getting them to the ends of their natural lifespan is beautiful, long or short. While it is in fact sad, it's not what this post is about. I recently saw a post from a bug blog about harassment of the blog and those that run them. I didn't want to derail from OPs post, so I'm making my own about bug ownership.

I love my bugs, I have some beautiful beetles, 7 of them! I love sharing pics and facts about them. Whether people like it or not, or are too ignorant to realize- we quite literally would not have an earth without bugs. Whether they feed larger animals that foster plant life for more animals, or are directly in charge of creating more plants via pollination... we NEED bugs. If you don't like them around you that's totally valid. I'm not going to preach to you that because bugs are so important you have to like them. So, why did I mention all that stuff? Because there isn't one pointless bug species. Let's get into that.

Mosquitos. The most common 'I want to kill this entire species' bug. Well, wrong! For many reasons! Mosquitos are a very important part of the greater ecosystem. First, they feed bats, birds, and fish. This would force those species to need to rapidly adapt and cause a drastic shift in those species' numbers and survival techniques. Also, mosquitos pollinate! They pollinate flowers in wet environments. So, yes, even mosquitos aren't pointless, even if they can spread disease. Science is actively working on a way to make mosquitos safer rather than wiping them out as a species. I cannot speak on these experiments or how effective they are, but the fact they are trying sounds like a net positive to me.

I know people likely don't keep mosquitos as pets. Even if the most hated bug on earth has value, then so do pet bugs that people actively love.

Now on topic, you may think you're being funny or quirky by threatening to murder someone's pet. it wouldn't be funny if someone threatened to shoot your horse or put your dog down. Why? Is it because it's a horse or a dog? Or is it because you love the animal. Is it both? You formed a bond with your animal. You know its behaviors and quirks. It feels like a member of the family.

While bugs cannot bond with humans, humans can surely bond to their bugs and feel similarly if not exactly the same. Personally, as an autistic with bugs as my pets AND special interest- I get threats that people want to kill or brutalize them on a daily basis. People in my family ask about them just to tell me how disgusting they are two seconds later. Videos posted about pet bugs for bug lovers get the "KILL IT WITH FIRE" comment constantly, or that stupid flamethrower gif. Again, I ask, how is threatening to burn someone's pet alive okay? Because it's small? Because it's not "pretty"? Because it isn't as intelligent as an aussie shepherd? That brings the question of why you're okay with killing someone else's pet without a thought because you deem it as less intelligent or not up to beautiful animal standard.