25 March 2010

New Leopard Gecko

I adopted a High Yellow Leopard Gecko from Billy 2days ago because he can no longer take care of her
She is the prettiest high yellow morph that i ever seen although she have lose her tail before, few years back due to a fight in a mating attempt but the tail grows back nicely (At least to me :p)
I was told she is a adult and should be around 4years old and can live up to 15years if being taken care well
I do hope i have the chance to breed her in the future although she is just a normal high yellow, but i love high yellow more than those designer morph

Some pictures to share as usual
An overall picture of her
Smile
Lick it lick it lick it
Scouting for handsome gecko
Face shot

22 March 2010

Lychas Mucronatus brood

I got two adult Lychas Mucronatus pair from Rafiqos on 11 February 2010, both have some white color egg like thing on them
I originally got 2pair but i gave one pair to another friend to let him get rid of those eggs like things on them
I used vaseline and dip away those eggs and it seems to be working quite well but the male died shortly after
Maybe i overdid with the vaseline or he die of other factors
Before that, i tried mating them but they was reluctant to mate so i left them both in their communal enclosure and concluded that the female might be gravid since she is quite plump

A few weeks after the male departed, the female gave birth, a large brood
She was all covered by babies, i roughly counted them and estimated that i have at least 30 babies
I misted the container everyday and on the 3rd day, they all molted to 2instar
One dead on substrate and the mom eaten it, the others are doing very well, clinging on the mom until the 2nd day
I counted them and i was right, i got 31 babies :D
I rehoused them all in individual small delicup container with a cork bark and one managed to escaped when i accidentally dropped the container =(
It ran behind my shelf and i was too tired to remove it and just continue rehousing the others

The next day i decided to remove the shelf and see if its still there and to my surprise, it's indeed still clinging on the shelf
I tried to cup it with a container and accidentally crushed one of it's chela =(
It's still active despite of the chela but to my surprise, the chela seems tto be working fine on the next day

Nothing much to write since the female was already pregnant when i got her so here's some pictures

Female with 1st instar
Close up
Size

2instar



Group hugs :)


Their individual container


The lost one, behind this shelf

Unrelated
Here's some prego scorp of mine, waiting to pop :D

Centruroides Margaritatus


Leiurus Quinquestriatus

Liocheles Australasiae


And Pandinus Imperator



The worst day in my invert hobby

9 March 2010, I was sooooo happy on this day, I got 3 mantis (Dead leave mantis, Orchid mantis and a Flower mantis) and 3 new scorpion (1.2 Centruroides Gracilis)
When i got back home on that day, i found that two of the female gracilis are dying!
Their legs are both curved in and lifeless, perhaps its due to the bad packaging method by the sender
I was told he flooded the container and the parcel was delayed for a week+ so perhaps they cant make it through the harsh environment.....
Ok, nvm, went to sleep and forget bout it

10 March 2010, i woke up and found my orchid mantis DEAD!!! Just freaking dead for no reason in one night!
She was so active and normal when i got her, she even eaten a mealworm!
I don't know is it because i forgot to make ventilation holes for her but as i know they can survive for quite sometimes without ventilation holes because we can send them through postage like inverts
I check on the scorpions and other mantis, looks normal and one of the female gracilis dead and the male dying....
I went to work, i came back and guess what? All scorpion and the flower mantis DEAD!!!! God damm it!
I was so frustrated on that day, its the worst day i ever been through ever since i start keeping exotics

One of the dead gracilis looks prego so i dissect her to see if there's any embryo inside her or not but i found nothing
Others i just put in fridge to preserve them, they ll be make into taxidermy in the future

Well, to make it worst, my balsasensis babies molted to 2instar but only 5 out of 10 make it through
They just died and drop on substrate after molted, i have no idea why, both humidity and temperature was around the same as the 1st batch when they molted
I already can't feel anything when i saw them, my mind was blank and just accepted it =(

Here's what they left for me, pictures only :(
Dead leaf mantis (Sorry for bad lighting, im a bad photographer)
Orchid mantis
Flower mantis
Look, he take down a big mealworm omg
Centruroides Gracilis
Male
Female 1
Dying suspected to be gravid female
See i can even turn her around
Dead and dissected
Nothing inside

Dead Balsasensis (One more i fed to my 1st batch)

PS: The dead leaf mantis was dead a few days later

07 March 2010

Update of my Centruroides Balsasensis

It have been awhile, all of my 1st batch of Centruroides Balsasensis have molted to 3instar
So far 7died/missing (1missing, a few died of dehydration and one or two from cannibalism)
At 1st i wanted to keep them communally but it seems like it's not doing very well so i decided to separate all of them and they are doing much better after that

Their setup are easy, only some coco fiber as substrate and a piece of vertical cork bark
I feed them once or twice every week depending on my cricket stock and lightly mist one of the corner everytime i feed them
Though, the adult prefer to live in dry environment but the babies need more moisture to survive and molt properly from what i observe
That's because everytime i mist, i notice all of them will started to drink from the water droplet
Perhaps i will add water dish in each of them once they are big enough

Aside from that, one of my C.Balsasensis gave me another brood of 10 3days ago
It's a small brood compare to the previous batch but i'm not disappointed as i have two more gravid one
After having a tough time removing all the babies from the mother in the 1st batch as they all was hiding in small gap in the bark, i rehouse the mom with the brood on her back to another container consisting of plain substrate with some cork bark for hide
This way the babies wont have much hiding place to hide and i can get them removed easily

Here's some pictures to share
Their individual containers

One of the setup

2nd female with brood

Upclose

Her setup

This one is yet to pop...

The female that gave me her 1st brood mated again