Disturbed Archispirostreptus gigas Eggs

Ranitomeya

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 11, 2012
Messages
255
I recently purchased some dubia roaches as feeders and mites have spread from one enclosure to the next and I've been dealing with it by drying enclosures that could be dried while boiling substrate from enclosures that would take too long to dry and keeping the infested inhabitants dry for about a day while the hitchhiking mites die and fall off from dehydration.

Today I was dealing with my Archispirostreptus gigas tank and discovered that the mites are perfectly at home in their tank--they're visible in rather large numbers on the surface of the substrate. I began removing substrate and pouring boiling water through it when I discovered small, yellowish spheres that look very similar to miracle grow fertilizer pellets and realized there were eggs.

It was too late for the few that I found in the already heat-treated batch of substrate, but I collected the ones I could find in the second bucket of substrate I was about to treat before placing the substrate back into the enclosure. There are several buckets worth of substrate in the nearly-filled 20 gallon long aquarium, so hopefully there are more eggs in there that have been left undisturbed.

I can tell from the eggs that I'd found that the eggs are laid singly within a pellet of subtrate or poop and scattered throughout the substrate rather than laid in a chamber. Does anyone have any experience with eggs of this species that might know if the disturbed eggs will still survive? One of the eggs has already hatched.
 

meloddipedes

Arachnopeon
Joined
Sep 16, 2016
Messages
47
I recently purchased some dubia roaches as feeders and mites have spread from one enclosure to the next and I've been dealing with it by drying enclosures that could be dried while boiling substrate from enclosures that would take too long to dry and keeping the infested inhabitants dry for about a day while the hitchhiking mites die and fall off from dehydration.

Today I was dealing with my Archispirostreptus gigas tank and discovered that the mites are perfectly at home in their tank--they're visible in rather large numbers on the surface of the substrate. I began removing substrate and pouring boiling water through it when I discovered small, yellowish spheres that look very similar to miracle grow fertilizer pellets and realized there were eggs.

It was too late for the few that I found in the already heat-treated batch of substrate, but I collected the ones I could find in the second bucket of substrate I was about to treat before placing the substrate back into the enclosure. There are several buckets worth of substrate in the nearly-filled 20 gallon long aquarium, so hopefully there are more eggs in there that have been left undisturbed.

I can tell from the eggs that I'd found that the eggs are laid singly within a pellet of subtrate or poop and scattered throughout the substrate rather than laid in a chamber. Does anyone have any experience with eggs of this species that might know if the disturbed eggs will still survive? One of the eggs has already hatched.
Hopefully since one already hatched, they'll be ok. Good luck! Hope to see baby photos soon :)
 
Last edited:

Hisserdude

Arachnoking
Joined
Apr 18, 2015
Messages
2,453
Awesome find man! The eggs should be OK, people will take them out of the cells to show what the eggs look like, and as long as they are kept moist they usually hatch anyway. Keep us updated man, really hope you end up with a ton of babies! :)
 

Ranitomeya

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 11, 2012
Messages
255
More of the eggs have begun to hatch into the immobile, headless, and legless larva-like stage and the hatching egg I collected when I disturbed the eggs initially is now a mobile little millipede with just a few pairs of legs and a rather long tail. It seems disturbing them has no effect as long as they aren't damaged.

 

WeightedAbyss75

Arachnoangel
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Messages
921
Nice to know it worked out! Those are AGB pedelings right? Need more of those in the hobby ;)
 

Elytra and Antenna

Arachnoking
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2,506
More of the eggs have begun to hatch into the immobile, headless, and legless larva-like stage and the hatching egg I collected when I disturbed the eggs initially is now a mobile little millipede with just a few pairs of legs and a rather long tail. It seems disturbing them has no effect as long as they aren't damaged.

Great job! Are those from Ward's wild-caught? I've got one little protonymph (found sitting on the surface when it was an egg) from a number of generations in. Hopefully I do as well as you but I'm not ready to dig through and find if it has no siblings. Did you punish yourself and count how many eggs got boiled?
 

Ranitomeya

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 11, 2012
Messages
255
Great job! Are those from Ward's wild-caught? I've got one little protonymph (found sitting on the surface when it was an egg) from a number of generations in. Hopefully I do as well as you but I'm not ready to dig through and find if it has no siblings. Did you punish yourself and count how many eggs got boiled?
I purchased males from bugs in cyberspace and females from someone on facebook. They've all got some damaged or missing legs and a few kinks in their exoskeletons, but I'm assuming they'll repair it when they finally molt for me. I've had them since July of last year.

I did check to see how many eggs I boiled, but I only found six of them--probably because that initial batch of substrate was mostly scraped from the surface. Hopefully there are more eggs left in the enclosure and the females continue laying them. Judging by the staggered rate of hatching in the ones I collected, it seems likely there's a good span of time between when each egg is laid.
 

Elytra and Antenna

Arachnoking
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I purchased males from bugs in cyberspace and females from someone on facebook. They've all got some damaged or missing legs and a few kinks in their exoskeletons, but I'm assuming they'll repair it when they finally molt for me. I've had them since July of last year.

I did check to see how many eggs I boiled, but I only found six of them--probably because that initial batch of substrate was mostly scraped from the surface. Hopefully there are more eggs left in the enclosure and the females continue laying them. Judging by the staggered rate of hatching in the ones I collected, it seems likely there's a good span of time between when each egg is laid.
Glad to hear you didn't lose many. The span just mostly depends on how many they lay, maybe you'll have hundreds.
 

Ranitomeya

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 11, 2012
Messages
255
Glad to hear you didn't lose many. The span just mostly depends on how many they lay, maybe you'll have hundreds.
Hundreds would be a dream. I'm just happy to have just a few! The only problem right now is that I don't want to disturb the substrate further, but I also want to eliminate the grain mites in my room and they're the last enclosure that I know is infested.
 
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