Hisserdude
Arachnoking
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2015
- Messages
- 2,493
Been working with this species for a little while now, and I finally have reared one to maturity. 
Got these teneral pictures of it earlier last month, it's darkened up since then and seems to be very healthy.
This species has proven quite difficult to breed compared to other Cryptoglossini, on a pure sand substrate (which is what I've been rearing the larvae on), the mature larvae would make pupal cells, but as soon as I bumped the heat up for them to start developing properly, the sand would dry out and the pupal cells would collapse. However, keeping the sand more humid so it'd keep it's shape proved a bad idea too, because the required humidity to do so was too much for the Asbolus, and they'd just die in their pupal cells and rot away.
The answer to this dilemma proved fairly simple; just add a little clay to the lower layers of the substrate. The sand/clay mix proved stable enough for my larvae to make pupal cells without the substrate needing to be soaking wet, which allowed for my first ever Asbolus mexicanus pupa and adult to be produced!
Got these teneral pictures of it earlier last month, it's darkened up since then and seems to be very healthy.
This species has proven quite difficult to breed compared to other Cryptoglossini, on a pure sand substrate (which is what I've been rearing the larvae on), the mature larvae would make pupal cells, but as soon as I bumped the heat up for them to start developing properly, the sand would dry out and the pupal cells would collapse. However, keeping the sand more humid so it'd keep it's shape proved a bad idea too, because the required humidity to do so was too much for the Asbolus, and they'd just die in their pupal cells and rot away.
The answer to this dilemma proved fairly simple; just add a little clay to the lower layers of the substrate. The sand/clay mix proved stable enough for my larvae to make pupal cells without the substrate needing to be soaking wet, which allowed for my first ever Asbolus mexicanus pupa and adult to be produced!
