Recent content by MBullock

once they're out of the shed they are okay, it's during the actual molting itself they are in danger, because they can be trapped in their shed if startled during molting.

Their natural behavior is to crawl up to the burrow entrance, she might actually be hungry and trying to orient toward the 'entrance'. It's the air-flow causing it. It tells them that's the way out.

Lol i would be too intimidated to mess with the burrow like that, they have a nasty bite.

late-season larvae overwinter as pupae, i meant. lol derp.

I wouldnt put any isopoda other than dwarf whites with tarantulas. porcellio, armadillidium, oniscus and porcelionides all are known to attack molting insects, especially porcellio. Only the dwarves and a few others are safe with other inverts.

I doubt its a form of aposematism. most of their main predators still successfully eat them despite the hairs, mammals included. i honestly believe it's just uniform scales/hairs causing incidental interference.

Found a lone caterpillar near my sheet on a small aristolochia watsonii plant, which led to finding several more! This is a beautiful species, in all stages of development. Also accepts dutchman's pipe but not all aristolochia species.

I might actually culture these guys on a large scale, simply because of how fun they were to keep and watch. Dont let small kids handle these unsupervised, they are unbelievably poisonous.

Once these have eaten enough, they enter the prepupal stage and become restless, climbing the walls looking for a good incline to pupate upon. They spin a small 'hammock' of silk that lets them suspend as a chrysalis. Late-season adults born in the monsoon overwinter as pupae.

This species has two seasons- One is in spring, composed entirely of overwintered adults, and the other lasts the entire monsoon, rapidly growing and pupating to the point of thousands of adults seen flying around large patches of aristolochia.

The adults all emerged with zero problems and were released. they are stunning butterflies with beautiful blue iridescent scales. Pictures never do these justice!

These were a joy to keep, and very satisfying with these lovely iridescent colors. Totally recommend these to people getting into lepidoptera.

Try mixing some vinegar with dish soap and fill a bowl with it. True to their Genus epithet "Drosophila", they are vinegar-loving flies. They will land in it and instantly sink, because the dish soap eliminates surface-tension, which normally allows them to float harmlessly on water...

Despite being desert ants, these farm a species of fungus that cannot tolerate temperatures higher than 85 f, the best Temp range is around 75-78-ish. If the fungus dies, the entire colony goes with it.

This population of Acromyrmex practices pleometrosis, a form of polygyny where multiple queens will found together and raise their fungus. Unlike other ants, these do not have nanitic workers. they are weakly polymorphic with minors and majors, but no supermajors like in ATTA, a related species.