Unorthodox arthropods

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Yeah, water striders are easy and very entertaining. I've unintentionally bred them before.

 

[pannaking22]

Can you buy blood? If so, ticks should be easy. But I ask you to favors.

Yes you can buy blood, but it's much more difficult to get ticks to feed than mosquitoes or leeches. Mosquitoes just need blood heated up to a proper temp and then they will feed through a very fine cloth mesh screen. Ticks not so much. They need extra incentive to feed artificially and I believe this includes production of carbon dioxide, a suitable feeding place, and a heartbeat. Much easier to just have small mammals for them to feed on unfortunately (not recommended).

 

[CladeArthropoda]

Yes you can buy blood, but it's much more difficult to get ticks to feed than mosquitoes or leeches. Mosquitoes just need blood heated up to a proper temp and then they will feed through a very fine cloth mesh screen. Ticks not so much. They need extra incentive to feed artificially and I believe this includes production of carbon dioxide, a suitable feeding place, and a heartbeat. Much easier to just have small mammals for them to feed on unfortunately (not recommended).

Interesting. Ticks are perhaps the most unorthodox of pets.

 

[MTA]

Fireflies seem to be pretty common in some places, but I haven't seen anyone keep them. I have a female Lamprigera sp. from Southeast Asia, the females of this genus stay a larva their whole life. The larvae of fireflies probably aren't too hard to keep, I know some eat snails, slugs, or earthworms.

20170611_155817

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017
• 1

Lamprigera sp.

20170611_155713

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017

The thing that glows on the firefly, Lamprigera

20170517_095918

• MTA
• May 22, 2017
• 5

Lamprigera sp.

 

[CladeArthropoda]

Fireflies seem to be pretty common in some places, but I haven't seen anyone keep them. I have a female Lamprigera sp. from Southeast Asia, the females of this genus stay a larva their whole life. The larvae of fireflies probably aren't too hard to keep, I know some eat snails, slugs, or earthworms.

20170611_155817

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017
• 1

Lamprigera sp.

20170611_155713

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017

The thing that glows on the firefly, Lamprigera

20170517_095918

• MTA
• May 22, 2017
• 5

Lamprigera sp.

Nice

 

[schmiggle]

Fireflies seem to be pretty common in some places, but I haven't seen anyone keep them. I have a female Lamprigera sp. from Southeast Asia, the females of this genus stay a larva their whole life. The larvae of fireflies probably aren't too hard to keep, I know some eat snails, slugs, or earthworms.

20170611_155817

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017
• 1

Lamprigera sp.

20170611_155713

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017

The thing that glows on the firefly, Lamprigera

20170517_095918

• MTA
• May 22, 2017
• 5

Lamprigera sp.

Man, I wish we had insects that big around here. I think the closest we have are the invasive Chinese mantises.

 

[spotropaicsav]

Fireflies seem to be pretty common in some places, but I haven't seen anyone keep them. I have a female Lamprigera sp. from Southeast Asia, the females of this genus stay a larva their whole life. The larvae of fireflies probably aren't too hard to keep, I know some eat snails, slugs, or earthworms.

20170611_155817

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017
• 1

Lamprigera sp.

20170611_155713

• MTA
• Jun 11, 2017

The thing that glows on the firefly, Lamprigera

20170517_095918

• MTA
• May 22, 2017
• 5

Lamprigera sp.

Glad you posted, I'm partial to fireflies, had no idea these existed. Lifespan?

 

[MTA]

Glad you posted, I'm partial to fireflies, had no idea these existed. Lifespan?

I'm not sure how long these live, the males might have a similar lifespan to male Phengodes. I think the females would live around 2 years at least.

 

[Scythemantis]

My dream insects are actually any of the larger, naturally wingless flies, but most of them are bloodsuckers. I hope that they can be fed the same method as captive mosquitoes, but they also tend to be host-specific, such as sheep keds and bat flies.

Remipedes it should be mentioned are saltwater animals in addition to only inhabiting caves. They would possibly need a chiller.

I'd say the holy grail of arthropod pets that most never considered are the giant isopods from the deep sea abyss; they can adapt perfectly well to captivity, several aquariums have them!

 

[CladeArthropoda]

My dream insects are actually any of the larger, naturally wingless flies, but most of them are bloodsuckers. I hope that they can be fed the same method as captive mosquitoes, but they also tend to be host-specific, such as sheep keds and bat flies.

Remipedes it should be mentioned are saltwater animals in addition to only inhabiting caves. They would possibly need a chiller.

I'd say the holy grail of arthropod pets that most never considered are the giant isopods from the deep sea abyss; they can adapt perfectly well to captivity, several aquariums have them!

Whoa. Wingless flies are really cool. Never thought anyone would mention them.

But giant isopods are relatively famous, so they aren't the holy grail per say. I think this is the most unorthodox arthropods anyone can have as pets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantulocarida

Here's something I like to think of. A giant zoo containing every single known extant arthropod species (and maybe some recently extinct ones if cloning turns out to be pretty good). Of course, such a thing would be a nightmare to maintain. But you can always dream...

 

[BobBarley]

Man, I wish we had insects that big around here. I think the closest we have are the invasive Chinese mantises.

Large insects in the U.S.? Check Megaphasma dentricus.

 

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Large insects in the U.S.? Check Megaphasma dentricus.

We've also got giant lubber grasshoppers and large predatory katydids, a handful of decent sized dynastid beetles, as well as saturniid moths. Citheronia regalis is one of the bulkiest lepidopterans in the world, with spectacular 16 centimeter caterpillars donning big colorful horns.

 

[schmiggle]

Large insects in the U.S.? Check Megaphasma dentricus.

Not the US--I know the country as a whole has some huge bugs, including tarantulas (not that that's an insect ). I meant where I live, namely New England. We get some fairly large insects--I recently saw a striking 2" white grasshopper with black and white striped wings, and some of the butterflies are fairly substantial looking, in their way--but nothing like Megaphasma, at least that I know of. The Chinese mantises are pretty cool, though, I will say. What I'd love to find is a native mantis.

 

[BobBarley]

Not the US--I know the country as a whole has some huge bugs, including tarantulas (not that that's an insect ). I meant where I live, namely New England. We get some fairly large insects--I recently saw a striking 2" white grasshopper with black and white striped wings, and some of the butterflies are fairly substantial looking, in their way--but nothing like Megaphasma, at least that I know of. The Chinese mantises are pretty cool, though, I will say. What I'd love to find is a native mantis.

Ah, my bad lol.

Well back to the topic, how about these guys?
http://bugguide.net/node/view/147401/bgpage

 

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Not the US--I know the country as a whole has some huge bugs, including tarantulas (not that that's an insect ). I meant where I live, namely New England. We get some fairly large insects--I recently saw a striking 2" white grasshopper with black and white striped wings, and some of the butterflies are fairly substantial looking, in their way--but nothing like Megaphasma, at least that I know of. The Chinese mantises are pretty cool, though, I will say. What I'd love to find is a native mantis.

As a fellow new englander, I can tell you that we do have some reasonably large bugs. We have giant water bugs, large water scavenger and diving beetles, stag beetles and big metallic green caterpillar hunters. Though you hear them a lot more than you see them, some of our cicadas and katydids are pretty large. While small compared to Megaphasma, we do have a couple species of Diapheromera and Manomera stick insects that can reach a respectable 3- 4 inches. You almost never see them, but they're quite common- they have very distinctive fecal pellets which I see collecting on vegetation below oak trees surprisingly often.

If you wanna go beyond insects, we have huge Dolomedes tenebrosus fishing spiders and some old growth forests hold populations of hefty 4 inch millipedes.

My personal favorite are the aforementioned saturniid moths. They are becoming increasingly rare and the very biggest species is extinct from Massachusetts, but we still have cecropia and polyphemus moths with 5- 7 inch wingspans and the slightly smaller but incredibly beautiful luna and promethea moths. Again, these are rarely seen, but you can change that by obtaining some eggs and putting a little effort into feeding their fat caterpillars. (I'm currently rearing a couple batches of polyphemus and cecropia larvae... it's a lot of work as far as invertebrates go, but they grow fast and you get a 9- month break every winter.)

But sadly we don't have any native mantises. Only Chinese and smaller European mantids.

 

[i like reptiles]

Talitridae I have seen on the beaches in Northern California, I like thembut have never kept them.

Don't try it, sandhoppers in particular (ones you find on the beach) are extremely hard and no one I know of has successfully kept them, no one knows why they are hard either