Breeding Invertebrates

for Fun and Food

by Gordon J. L. Ramel B.Sc. M.Phil.

author of

The Wonderful World of Insects

(Now The Earthlife Web = www.earthlife.net/insects/)
 Copyright 2011 by Gordon J. L. Ramel

All commercial rights reserved.

For non-commercial uses, such as teaching,
please respect the authors rights
and do not reproduce any part of this book
without acknowledging the source and the author.
Acknowledgements.

This book has arisen out of about 15 years of breeding a wide variety of invertebrates and 5 years of
working with the AES BugClub as their Events Officer. The information in it comes from a variety
of sources, including all the books sourced throughout the work and in the section General
References or Other Reading at the end of the book. I have to thank all the authors of these books,
as well as the authors of all the other entomological books I have enjoyed over the years.

During my years with the BugClub I travelled around the UK participating in a large number of Insect,
Invertebrate and Reptile & Invertebrate shows. During this time I indulged in endless conversations
with hobbyists of varying levels of expertise on all manner of subjects pertaining to invertebrate
husbandry. Without this large body of nameless enthusiasts the inspiration for this book would never
have come about.

Thirdly I must thank the huge number of children whose endless enthusiasm for the small and living
has been a great inspiration. The joy of seeing their small faces light up with wonder when they get
close to these amazing creatures is a very real motivation.

On a more personal note I have to thank Nick Baker for getting me involved in the fledgling Bug Club
back in 1991, something that greatly encouraged me to expand my knowledge of invertebrate
husbandry and allowed me to learn that a book such as this was/is needed.

Beyond this I must thank Ian Abercrombie who was a tireless source of advice on nearly every sort of
invertebrate while I was expanding my knowledge during the 1990s, he still knows far more than I,
but is not so inclined to writing.

Finally I would like to thank Amazon Kindle for giving me the chance to finally get this book
published.

Further, more specific, acknowledgements are given at the end of specific chapters.
Table of Contents

Welcome 6
Part 1; Introduction 8
Finding and Catching Invertebrates 14
Cages or Housing 22
Bites and Stings. 31
Handling Invertebrates 32
People Like Me 34
Part 2; Introduction 36
Amblypygi 37
Ant-lions 40
Ants 43
Assassin Bugs 48
Butterflies and Moths 51
Ground Beetles 66
Centipedes 69
Chironomids 73
Cockroaches 76
Collembola 79
Crane Flies 84
Crickets 87
Drosophila 90
Earthworms 93
Fresh-water Flatworms 96
Fresh-water Insects 98
Harvestmen 102
Houseflies 104
Hoverflies 106
Hermit Crabs (Terrestrial) 110
Ladybird Beetles 112
Locusts 116
The Lucanidae 118
Praying Mantids 121
Mealworms 126
Milkweed bugs 127
Millipedes 129
Mixed Cultures 133
Mosquitoes 136
Scarabaeidae 139
Scorpions 147
Asian Six Spot Tiger Beetle 152
Silk Worms 154
Slugs and Snails 156
Solifuges 159
Other Spiders 163
Stick-Insects 168
Tarantulas 174
Confused Flour Beetles 181
Whip Scorpions 182
Wax Moths 186
Woodlice 188
Giant Mealworms 194
General References or Other Reading 196
Appendix 1. Entomological Supply Companies 197
Appendix 2. Entomological Societies 199
Appendix 3. Mailing Lists and Yahoo Groups etc 200
Index 201
 Welcome
Hi,

Welcome to Gordons guide to Breeding Invertebrates from the Wonderful World of Insects web
site. This book has grown out of nearly ten years of answering questions concerning raising, or
keeping, all sorts of invertebrates, both as part of my work with the Bug Club (a club for children
who like insects) and from my web page The Wonderful World of Insects. Some problems discussed
here seem to be fairly rare but others turn up time and time again. I hope this book will be of use to
all amateur insectophiles, including those who breed insects as food for other pets and particularly
for schools.

Thousands of species of invertebrates are kept and successfully bred every year in captivity, most of
these however are in research laboratories and many of them require very specific care and
maintenance. Detailed information on most of these small and generally more difficult species can be
obtained from more expensive, and complete or taxon specific books, or research papers published in
scientific journals. This book however concentrates on species that are relatively commonly in
demand, easy to cultivate, useful in schools or possess a combination of these three characteristics.

The book comes in two parts. First there is a general introduction to the repeating themes and
concepts behind keeping invertebrates, and then secondly, there are a series of pages on individual
groups, or in some cases species, of animals. I sincerely recommend that everybody read the first
section first, because whichever group of insects you are planning to raise this first section will make
things easier.

I have kept a large variety of invertebrates and vertebrates over the last 15 years, not only out of
personal interest, but also as a professional ecologist, and during my work with the Bug Club. I have
included a number of references here and there when I thought they may be of help to the reader, but
please bear in mind that the majority of the information laid out here is the result of personal
experience. This personal experience is not mine only, but also comes from the many people in the
various specialised invertebrate groups mentioned throughout the text, as well as from many other
relevant individuals I have talked to at the various insect, spider and reptiles shows I visited as part
of my role as events officer for the Bug Club, as well as out of my own interest. I am greatly
indebted to them all, and, though they are too numerous to mention individually, I would like to thank
them all for their help over the years. Particular thanks must be extended to Ian Abercrombie who has
supplied most of the photos for this book and who knows more than I ever will about caring for
invertebrates. He is a lovely man who has always taken the time to answer my questions over the last
13 years and I am deeply grateful for having known him. I only asked him for the photos after the
book was written, which is why the species do not always match the text, this is my fault entirely.

Finally I have a big thank to you for buying this book as the proceeds from it will help me to keep
writing and running the Earthlife Web, my on-line encyclopaedia of life, of which The Wonderful
World of Insects forms but one chapter.
http://www.earthlife.net/ Visit it at your peril, you may never want to leave.
 Part 1; Introduction
A note on measurements.

Hopefully this book will sell in a variety of countries, some of which use metric measurements and
some imperial. For the sake of convenience I will express everything in metric measurements
throughout this book, for those not yet familiar with metric measurements the following table gives a
rough conversion guide.

2.54 centimetres 1 inch

7.62 centimetres 3 inches
15.25 centimetres 6 inches
30.48 centimetres 12 inches
61 centimetres 24 inches
92 centimetres 36 inches
100 centimetres = 1 metre 39.4 inches

___________________________________

Keeping invertebrates is rapidly becoming more popular as a hobby, both because it is fun and
because it is educational. Invertebrates are invaluable as teaching aids and they have many
advantages over vertebrates as pets. Most of these advantages arise because of their smaller size
and their often shorter generation times, which results in them being cleaner, cheaper and more
ecofriendly to keep. Many invertebrates are also relatively short lived, though some members of the
various arachnid orders can live for over 20 years.

One of the most exciting aspects of breeding invertebrates is the range of ease/difficulty that can be
found within the group, there are many invertebrates that are so easy to rear that young children can
easily be successful on their first attempt. From here the degree of difficulty grades on up through
moderate to difficult and then on species that are so difficult that no-one has yet succeeded in
breeding them in captivity. This means that as your expertise grows there are always new challenges
waiting for you, new animals to test your skills on. I believe that this is one of the reasons that
breeding invertebrates has become such a fast growing hobby

Many invertebrates also have the wonderful tendency to live in your neighbourhood. This means that
you can keep them for a day, or a week and then release them again (naturally enough this does not
apply to imported invertebrates which should never be released into the wild). This is very
convenient for people whose interests shift through time.

Keeping invertebrates in captivity is far more socially acceptable these days and I have friends who
have a 90 cm fish tank of Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches in their living room where 20 years ago
they would have had a fish tank of fish. Properly set up a display of one or more invertebrates is an
attractive and interesting addition to any room. The increased popularity of invertebrates as pets not
only makes them more socially acceptable but also means that equipment and supplies are far easier
to obtain now than they were when I first started keeping bugs in my living room 15 years ago.
Keeping invertebrates is not really that difficult. For the most part it is about respect and common
sense. The respect is important because it helps you keep your perspective, you will never do a
good job of keeping anything alive and healthy if you do not have respect for it, or if you do not find it
fascinating in some way, respect is as important when dealing with invertebrates as it is in any other
relationship with the world.

Common sense which, which is really just a state of awareness, works best when fuelled with a good
dollop of solid facts. To this end the first thing I would recommend anybody do, who was
anticipating keeping an invertebrate pet, is get some reading under your belt. If you do not take the
effort to learn some of the basic biology of the organism you are hoping to breed, or at least of the
major group to which it belongs, then you will get little enjoyment from it and I would have to ask.
Why are you keeping it at all?

Outside of employment in the scientific research world and commercial enterprises there are really
only a few reasons for breeding invertebrates. The two most common are either because you find
them fascinating or because you wish to feed them to something else. I have anticipated that most
people reading this book will have one of these two reasons in mind. A likely third reason is that
you may be a teacher, but I am sure I do not need to convince a teacher to do some background
reading.

Success brings joy in its wake but failure does not, reading up before you start will help improve
your chances of success, and therefore your pleasure. For most invertebrates this means visiting a
library, or a second hand bookshop and acquiring an entomology or zoology text and browsing
through it. A search under the keyword insects at Powells on-line 2-hand bookshop came up with
over 1,515 titles on 25/August/2004. Something like Grzimeks Encyclopaedia of Animal Life Vol.
2., which can often be picked up for less than $10.00 US would be an excellent place to start. The
other alternative is of course the internet, and I would recommend that a good basic understanding of
many invertebrates, particularly arthropods, can be found at my web site The Earthlife Web
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/six.html.

When I said breeding invertebrates was for the most part about common sense I was only being
truthful. This means you do not have to know all the answers immediately, you are free to learn as
you go along, in fact if you do not learn as you are proceeding then you are probably not doing the job
very well. Consider for instance how the knowledge that is laid out in the second part of this book
comes to be available. A lot of it was learned through trial and error and through diligent observation
by many different people and passed on to interested parties by word of mouth. But somebody had to
be first, someone first tried breeding millipedes in captivity, someone else first tried breeding
Harvestmen (Opilionids).

These brave souls who led the way, who generated a fair portion of the knowledge presented in this
and other books, did not have anybody to tell them what to do. They studied the animal in the wild
first, learned what was known about it and then experimented with keeping it in captivity. Sensibly
done, a focused interest that promotes experimentation, whilst maintaining an attitude of care and
respect for the life of the animal concerned, is an excellent way to deal with any form of animal
culture, and greatly increases the enjoyment you will derive from your pets.
Common sense means many things, most of which arise as a result of observation, if for instance you
wish to keep Lepidoptera, and are happy to start with local species, start by collecting caterpillars.
Why caterpillars and not the adult moths? Because caterpillars will in most cases already be living
on their chosen food plant so you will know instantly what to feed them.

Therefore you should not collect caterpillars that you find walking around on the ground because they
have either fallen out of a nearby tree, bush or herb, or else are looking for somewhere to pupate. If
they have fallen, or been knocked from the plant they were feeding on, unless you are in the middle of
a monoculture, or are already familiar with the species you will not know what to feed them. It is
much better to leave them alone, they stand far more chance of surviving on their own than with your
help. If on the other hand they are looking for somewhere to pupate they will not be very interesting
as pets, and even if you did see them successfully through the pupation period you would have to
release them after they emerged in order to give them a chance to reproduce. However a caterpillar
you find munching on a leaf of a plant is much easier to rear because you know what it likes to eat,
and for a caterpillar eating is what is life is all about.

I have received many emails from people who find stray caterpillars and wish to keep them,
unfortunately I have to recommend that they set them free instead. Though raising caterpillars is a
wondrously informative experience, it is best if you do it as a planned experience, read up on your
local species during the winter, get some cages ready and then in the Spring or Summer go out and
have fun.

I should add here that the Lepidoptera are a very popular group and these days it is possible to buy, at
least in 1st world countries, books that will tell you the preferred food plants of most of the local
moth and butterfly fauna. If you are willing to buy a book such as this there is nothing to stop you
from catching and raising many of your local butterflies and moths.

Common sense dictates that the captive breeding situation should, as far as possible, mimic the
animals normal environment with the exception of predators and parasites etc. If you find an animal
living in a fast flowing stream do not bother trying to raise it in a stagnant pond. If it lives in a bush,
give it some bush to live in. Further ideas relating to caterpillars apply here, if you find your
caterpillars singly spaced out, one per bush, keep them in separate containers, the chances are they
are cannibalistic and will attack one another if kept together. If you find them living in a group all
close together then raise them as a group together not just one on its own. This applies to other
organisms such as Ground Beetles and most Arachnids as well.

Choose sensibly, if you are trying to raise local wildlife, an animal such as a solitary bee that only
feeds at certain species of flowers and likes to chew holes in dead trees to make its nests, or a dung
burying beetle that likes to dig holes 1 metre deep is not going to be as easy to keep as say a snail that
is happy if it has a dead lettuce leaf to hide under during the day.

There are many invertebrates that can be raised in captivity if you know what you are doing, some
however, particularly carnivores, can require a considerable amount of input per individual. Keeping
200 stick-insects or cockroaches is far less work than keeping 200 mantids or tarantulas. Experience
will give you a feel for things, and an honest appreciation of the amount work involved. Do not be
greedy. You will make work for yourself that will in the end destroy your pleasure. Many
invertebrates can be found in relatively large numbers as hatchlings, but this does not mean you have
to collect them all. Thirty small caterpillars are fun while they are eating half a leaf per day between
them, but when they are munching 10 leaves a day each they become much more work.

Be considerate of your captives, while many animals can be raised singly as larvae quite happily in
captivity, once they become adults their lives have different priorities. A larva or juvenile, is
primarily concerned with avoiding predation and eating. This means so long as you provide
sufficient fresh food and keep it in a suitable environment it will be content. Adults however are
primarily concerned with finding other adults of the opposite sex and reproducing. This means, if you
catch a single adult insect or spider etc, and keep it in captivity, you are denying it the natural
expression of its life.

If it is a male, or a female which hasnt mated yet, it will only be interested in finding a mate, if it is a
mated female then it will be looking for somewhere to lay its eggs. Unless you have enough
experience to offer it suitable material it will usually end up laying its eggs in the container where
you will not know what to do with them, or it will die frustrated. In either case you have not really
been fair to the animal.

A typical example is fireflies, I often receive emails from people telling me they have caught several
fireflies and have them in a jar. Can I please tell them what to feed the fireflies on as they wish to
keep them. The best advice I can give is to recommend letting them go again after a day or two.

While fireflies are undoubtedly pretty when they light up, and make a fascinating display when kept in
a jar, it is important to remember that they are making their pretty lights not for our benefit, but to
attract other members of their own species, or sometimes to attract members of another species that
can then be eaten. In either case they cannot do this successfully in a glass jar in your house. So by
all means catch them and have a close look at them, but release them again in the morning. Fireflies
are at their most beautiful flying around in the wild where their lights are truly magic.
Archiblatta hoeveni; Photocopyright: Ian Abercrombie
A very attractive species of giant cockroach never kept in captivity
before 2003, yet one day its requirements will be common knowledge now
that Ian and a few friends are working with it. Their years of experience
with other invertebrates gives them a good chance of success
 Finding and Catching Invertebrates
Finding invertebrates is not normally a problem if all you are looking for is some invertebrates, and
it is not a bad policy to start keeping invertebrates that live in your backyard. This is in fact how I
started, keeping ants, woodlice and Lepidoptera that I found in my garden. Keeping easily obtainable
species, whose natural habits you can observe comfortably will give you good initial experience.
This applies to teachers as well as to naturalists and children. I would recommend that teachers who
plan to keep, and use, invertebrates in the classroom spend a few months practising keeping various
sorts of bugs in their homes first, this will give them invaluable experience which will help them
avoid many disasters in the classroom.

Other invertebrates of many sorts can be acquired from biological supply companies, pet shops,
specialist breeders and at local invertebrate shows. It is worth visiting Reptile, Amphibian and
Arachnid shows as well as Insect Fairs because all of these tend to have suppliers of invertebrates
attending them. If you have never kept any invertebrates before try not to get tempted by things that
look interesting.

Do not be fooled, however easily the sales person says they are to culture, unless you have already
read up on the subject, or have considerable experience, unknown animals are likely to be a
problem. Make a list of invertebrates that you are interested in from this book and take it with you.

Beware also of buying exotic invertebrates from pet shops, especially if you do not have much
experience yet yourself. Many pet shops still sell things they know nothing about, often they do not
know the animals correct name or even family. This is not always the case, there are good
conscientious pet shop owners as well, but if you are unfamiliar with the animal in question how will
you be able to recognise the good from the bad. If possible it is always better, when buying, to buy
from someone who breeds his own stock. This is especially true of arachnids.

Not all invertebrates are visible all the time and it is worth getting into the habit of looking for them at
different times. Moths, along with a large number of other invertebrates, are out mostly at night,
while woodlice, millipedes, centipedes and many spiders like to live close to the soil, often beneath
objects such as pieces of wood, stones etc. Knowing this it can be a useful idea to seed your back
yard with suitable resting sites, pieces of flat wood, bark and stones will supply profitable sites for
invertebrate finding once they have been around for a month or two.

Catching invertebrates is normally fairly easy and many can be picked up with your bare hands,
though it is wiser to avoid contact until you know the animal is not protected with poisonous hairs, an
ability to bite or a tendency to inject dangerous venoms.

A simple capture method that avoids physical contact is to place a jar over the top of the insect or
spider and then slide a piece of card underneath the specimen before inverting the jar whilst keeping
the card pressed tightly to the mouth of the jar. This is also a useful technique for removing spiders
from the floor of your room if you really cannot stand having them in the house.

Many invertebrates, as I have already mentioned, are only active at night, or else they are few and far
between. In either case, or if you simply do not have the time to spend searching, or would like to
find out what you have missed in your searching, you can use a trap.

The simplest and most popular trap is a pitfall trap. Pit-fall traps are a major ecological tool, and
though they involve no high technology, they have played their part in many good scientific research
projects. They come in a large variety of styles and forms, which relate in their diversity to the
requirements of the user.

Basically a pitfall trap is a hole in the ground with a container inside it. The simplest pitfall trap for
use over a small number of days consists of two plastic drink tumblers. The first is buried in the
ground with the lip just below the surface so that when the second is dropped into it, its lip is level
with the surface of the ground. The inner tumbler can then be lifted out easily in the morning and the
captives tipped into a separate container. The first tumbler will prevent the sides of the hole from
collapsing while you are doing this. It is best to find, or make a level piece of ground for your pit,
this will ensure the sides are as vertical as possible reducing the number of creatures that can escape
by climbing up the side If you would like to keep your traps operational for a long time it is
advisable to replace the outer tumbler with a suitably sized section of plastic down-pipe as this is
much more robust than the average plastic drinking tumbler.

The trap can be protected from the rain by a cover supported on 3 stones 1 or 2 cm in diameter if so
desired. It can have a funnel at the top to guide organisms into it and to hinder their escape from the
trap. Also it can be useful to put some crumpled cardboard as habitat space in the bottom, this will
help to prevent the unhappy residents from eating each other. Exactly how you set up your pitfall
traps depends on you, what your aims are and your experience.

Effective pitfall traps for schools or for personal interest can be made from tumblers as indicated
above, or from empty 0.75, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 litre water bottles. Simply cut the top third of the bottle
off, make 3 or 4 vertical slits in the cut edge of the top third then invert it and place it into the bottom
2 thirds such that it makes a funnel. This should then be buried up to the rim in the soil and checked
every day or so for inmates.

As before, if habitat creating cardboard has been provided the new residents are more likely to have
all their limbs, and can, after identification, or merely after admiration, be set free. You will be
amazed at the variety of organisms you can catch in this sort of trap. Once you have the hang of
making the traps you can conduct simple experiments by placing them in different habitats and at
different times of year and keeping a record of what you catch.

Not all insects however run around on the ground and butterflies, for instance, are seldom, if ever,
caught in pitfall traps. To catch insects that fly or move around in the vegetation, on trees or grass etc
you need a net. Insect catching nets can be bought relatively cheaply from a number of suppliers
throughout the world and I give addresses for some of them at the back of the book. However if
buying a net is not possible a simple net can be made from net curtain, wire and about one third of a
broom handle.

First you have to make a bag for the net, this is the bit that actually catches the insects. You can make
the bag out of nearly any material; however a fairly strong curtain mesh is best. Your bag needs to be
30 cm across at the top, about 10 cm across at the bottom (do not make a pointy cone or you will
never get the bugs out of the bottom of the bag) and 50 cm or 60 cm deep.

To make it you will need to cut a section of material that is 50 cm across the top, 17 cm across the
bottom and 55 cm or 65 cm deep. Make a small hem all around the edges then fold over the top 5 cm
of the top of the mesh and stitch this down such that it makes a small loop that you can put one or two
fingers through. Finally stitch up the sides and the bottom together. Do not stitch the sides all the way
up, leave about 7 cm or 8 cm at the top unstitched or unjoined so that both ends of the loop at the top
can be easily accessed. This is your bag finished.

Next cut a broom handle so that you have a piece about 60 cm in length. Drill 2 holes through this one
about 5 cm and one about 7 cm from one end. Then take some heavy grade wire, such as the wire
barbwire fence is made out of. (I actually have a net made out of barbwire fencing with the barbs
removed, and a piece of Birch branch which I used doing entomological research for English Nature
when I lived in the UK in 1998 and it is still working fine now in 2004). Now take your wire and
create a loop about 30 cm across with two tails each about 30 cm long (to do this your wire will want
to be about 120 cm long).

If your wire is not particularly strong take 2 pieces and wind them around each other, as in barbwire
again. Slip your bag onto the wire loop so that it goes all around the loop and leaves the section with
the V nearest the tails. Bend your 2 tails at right angles, one at 5 cm from the loop, and one at 7 cm
from the loop, so that they have cross each other (see diagram).

Next put your handle between the tails and push one tail through each of the holes you drilled in the
handle. They should go through from opposite sides, then, fold the wires back along the handle.
Finally bind the handle with some fine wire, string or electrical tape all along the wire right up to the
loop. Bingo one insect net.

A net for catching aquatic insects can be made in much the same way except that here the frame is
square like the nets you buy in a pet shop for catching fish in an aquarium, in fact an aquarium net, of
relatively large size, 20 cm or more across makes a fairly good pond net if attached to a wooden
handle. However it will be easily damaged by the debris in most ponds so it is better to get a proper
pond sampling net if you are planning to carry out regular samplings, or having it used by many
children. Also because of the tendency for pond nets to pick up weighty amounts of weeds, mud and
rotting substrate the support for the net really needs to be a small steel bar, rather than wire.

These tools are fine for relatively large insects; however for small insects such as Aphids and
Collembola you will find that a fine artists brush, a pair of tweezers and a pooter are more useful.
When moistened the artists brush can be used to pick up individual aphids without hurting them.

A pooter is a suction device that consists of a small glass, or clear plastic vial or jar, with a cork
stopper. Old rubber stoppers will do, though they are harder to drill through, but modern clip on
plastic lids are not so good, cork is best.

A pooter made from common materials, bought

from a pet shop tube and plastic bottle, or
scavenged - polystyrene top (sealed with strong tape).
There are two holes drilled through the stopper with a length of tropical fish tank air tube pushed
through both so that a small amount protrudes beyond the end of the stopper that will be inside the
tube or vial. One of these pieces of tube should be at least 15 cm long; this is the part the insects
travel up through.

The second tube needs some fine mesh tied over the end that is inside the vial to stop insects
travelling up it. This piece can be variable in length but 15 cm is OK for this piece as well, this is
the bit you suck through.

Other ways of catching insects involve a beating tray or a white sheet. A beating tray is a basically
flat square or rectangular sheet of canvas (about 1 metre square) supported so that it remains taut. It
is held under the bough of a tree which is then shaken vigorously, or beaten with a stick, care being
taken not to damage the tree. If you are lucky, and it is the right time of year (summer in temperate
zones) copious quantities of invertebrates will fall out of some trees and lesser numbers from others.
This can be a good way of comparing the different faunas associated with different trees. If you do
not have a beating tray and cannot get someone to make you one then an open and up-turned umbrella
will do as well. Otherwise simply spread a white cotton sheet on the ground under the tree.

Finally you can increase your chances of finding attractive invertebrates if you make habitat for them.
This involves creative gardening, which at its simplest can mean letting an area of the garden or
schoolyard remain unmown throughout the year. If this is done on a long-term basis the area involved
will change its nature considerably.
Although some maintenance will be necessary to prevent it becoming overgrown with woody
perennials such as trees, it can easily become a major teaching aid at little cost.

Sowing native wildflower seeds and growing plants that are known to attract insects is also a good
idea. Goldenrod is a wonderful insect plant, which even with just a few plants on their own will
bring you lots of goodies. Maintaining an open compost at the bottom of the garden and having small
woodpile nearby it will also help attract invertebrate visitors.

If you really wish to be serious arranging a couple of really big old logs, say 40 cm to 70 cm diameter
by 2.5 metres tall and standing them up so the resemble dead trees (i.e. bury them 50 cm or 60 cm at
least into the ground) will make a haven for many insects you might otherwise never see. While such
an affair will take more time to reap results, it should last for decades and get better every year.

Lastly a pool, preferably with its own attached boggy area will also serve to attract a number of
interesting insects and other invertebrates. A pool can be quite a complicated affair if it is custom
built, or it can be very simple. An old bath tub, sunk into the ground, partially filled with rocks and
earth at one end so that there is a gradient of water depth is an excellent first pond, several bath tub
arranged so that one flows into another is even better.

Once you have your pool set up get into the habit of collecting small, 500 ml samples, of water, weed
and mud from already established nearby ponds to dump into yours, this will help to rapidly establish
a strong biodiversity in your pond. Whatever your finances and the size of the ground you have
available there is something you can do to increase the invertebrates that you can find in your local
area. Even growing flowers in pots will help.
 Cages or Housing

A Stick Insect that has only just moulted hanging

from its own exuviae, which it will later climb
to reach the top of the cage.

Cages for invertebrates can be made from just about anything and the cage you use will depend on
what you are doing with your invertebrate captive. If you are only keeping your specimen for a day
or two, in order to get to know it a bit better and will then release it again, a glass or plastic jar with
small holes for aeration in the top, or a piece of cloth held to the top with an elastic band will do
fine. Remember though, that while many invertebrates can survive fine for a day or two without food
most will dry out very quickly if they do not have access to some moisture.

A piece of moistened paper towelling in the bottom of the jar will keep the humidity up and help keep
your captive alive, if the paper dries out rewet it, it should be moist but not dripping. The cohesive
forces of water can be a death trap for small invertebrates. It is worth remembering that many, if not
most, invertebrates caught by children and stored, even temporarily, if they die, die of dehydration.
Partly this is because the average bottle is quite a dry environment, but also because small animals
have a large surface area to volume ratio. This means they can potentially lose a very high
percentage of their body moisture very quickly. Of course many insects have evolved mechanisms to
avoid dehydration, especially those that live in hot dry environments, but many have not.

Secondly the inside of the average jar, even with a wet tissue paper on the bottom is a pretty barren
environment. Most invertebrates do not live, and are not happy in such an environment. Putting a few
twigs and or leaves into the jar will make life much more pleasant for the animal you have captured.
It will also give you a chance to observe more natural activities and to learn something. If you put in
twigs of different herbs for instance does the animal show a preference for or the other?

Also many of the invertebrates you catch will not like being out in the open too much, adding a few
pieces of bark or pebbles to the bottom of the jar after you have finished your first studies will give it
somewhere to rest away from the light if it so desires while you are occupied elsewhere. Finally
never leave a jar with a bug in it in direct sunlight. The glass of the jar will trap solar energy
(sunlight) and the temperature will rapidly rise beyond the level where anything can live. Glass and
or plastic containers left in the sun are death traps to anything inside them.

If you are intending to keep invertebrates for a longer period of time, or if you are hoping to breed
them and or study them, you will need to make a little more effort over your cage or cages. A variety
of useful cages can be bought from many pet shops these days and for many people, especially at first,
these will prove to be quite adequate.

However many of these cages are actually designed for small mammals and have ventilation slots in
the lid that will allow smaller invertebrates to walk free. The simplest solution to this problem is to
place a piece of fine mesh cloth across the top of the lower portion of the cage before applying the
lid. The lid will hold this on and it will prevent all but the most minute of bugs from escaping.
Suitable mesh can be bought from many insect suppliers and or gardening shops, otherwise fine
curtain lace will normally do the job quite well.

For many invertebrates a collection of 2 and 3 litre ice-cream or margarine containers make very
useful preliminary, and sometimes permanent, homes. These can be rendered more observer friendly
by cutting out the centre of the lid and using just the edges and 1 or 1.5 cm worth of the outer portion
of the lid to hold a piece of mesh, as above, over the top of the container. This also removes the need
to supply ventilation holes in the lid and or sides of the container. For some species these sorts of
containers are ideal, particularly for animals such as woodlice and mealworms which are unable to
climb up the smooth sides meaning that no lid is needed at all unless you desire to keep other
invertebrates, or vertebrates out.

Another commonly used invertebrate cage is a glass fish tank, these are of course excellent for raising
aquatic insects, many of which will live happily until maturity in a relatively small tank providing the
water is kept clean and they have sufficient food. Keeping aquatic insects and other invertebrates
such as leeches and aquatic mites can be very beneficial because in a tank of 60 cm length or more a
healthy environment can be set up which allows the viewer to observe many creatures in their
ordinary lives. A medium to large freshwater fish tank, well set up is a miniature pond and will
supply a wealth of fascination for anybody and is a real benefit to the classroom. I am only talking
about freshwater fish tanks here, in most cases saltwater fish tanks require more expertise to keep
healthy and I am not intending to supply any information about that in this book.

Fish tanks are also excellent for terrestrial invertebrates, especially those that need their soil damp.
If you are keeping invertebrates in a fish tank you will need to replace the standard cover with some
cloth mesh, this can be held on with some elastic. It is however better to make a tight fitting lid with
a wooden frame and a mesh surface. A tight fighting lid is especially important for cockroaches such
as the Giant Hissing species which can be amazingly strong and are designed to push themselves into
tight spaces and whose young are much smaller than the adults, some tarantulas are also surprisingly
strong and prone to attempting to escape.

A wood and mesh cage 60x60x40 cm suitable for a variety of animals. This one has held lizards and
frogs as well as a variety of insects

If you are planning on raising reasonable numbers of butterflies, other Lepidoptera or leaf eating
insects you will need a larger cage, and generally speaking custom built cages are better than
commercial ones. If for no other reason than that you can adjust the design to suit your needs.

A basic stick-insect cage for raising medium sized species should be a minimum of 45 cm square and
60 cm high. It is best built out of a wooden frame with fly screen plastic mesh on the roof and sides,
one of which should be a door that either lifts away or swings open. The door does not need to be the
full size of the front of the cage, and I usually have it so it opens only for the top two thirds.

The floor should be solid wood. The wood used should be old, or untreated, as most commercially
available wood is impregnated with insecticide which will not do your invertebrate friends any
good. Another alternative to a solid wooden floor is to have no floor at all and to stand the floorless
cage in another shallow container such as the plastic base of a seed propagation tray (one without
holes). This method makes it easier to clean the cage as you can simply move the cage to a new base,
and then collect up anything that is living and put it back in the cage.
Photo = A smaller, two-compartment cage 38x28x20 cm the doors are at the back and slide out.
Notice that I have used stiff cardboard to hold the mesh on. This was because I needed the cage in a
hurry and I ran out of wood, even so it lasted several years. It is suitable for overnight housing for
larger animals, for mantids, for getting Lepidoptera to lay eggs and for allowing pupae to emerge

Inside the cage you will need a container to hold the plant material your invertebrates are feeding on.
This can easily be made by cutting the top off a 2 litre plastic coke bottle so that you have a 15 cm
high section left, a largish glass jar will do better though, because its extra weight will give it more
stability. If this is filled with something like sand, or the material called oasis in the UK that you can
by from most florists or from shops catering to the needs of people who make dried flower
arrangements, it will still hold enough water to keep the plant material that is pushed into it fresh
without there being any chance of your invertebrates drowning themselves. You can also try filling it
with fine gravel.

If you wish to manipulate the invertebrates you are keeping whilst they are in the cage without risking
others escaping through the open door 1 or 2 of the sides of fly screen can be replaced with a material
mesh. In the centre of the mesh you cut a hole wide enough to let your hand pass through comfortably.
Then a sleeve of the same mesh is sown over the hole, the other end of the sleeve should be
elasticised to grip your wrist. Then by putting your hand or hands through the sleeve or sleeves you
can work with the inhabitants of the cage without risking them escaping. Obviously you must tie the
sleeves up when you are not using them.

For many invertebrates lighting is an important aspect of housing, in cooler climates artificial lighting
also adds some additional heating. In many parts of the world having the cage near an open window
will supply sufficient light, however beware of over-heating in direct sunlight. If the room is not well
lighted, or if the cage cannot be situated near a window then some form of artificial light will be
needed.

Note that light is more important for organisms that normally live in well-lit environments such
as stick-insects, Orthoptera in general and many Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, particularly as
adults.

For many purposes an ordinary light bulb suspended above the cage will supply all the light
required.

The bulb will add more heat if it is suspended within the cage, however the surface of a light bulb is
very hot, and insects climbing on it will get fried. To prevent this it is necessary to surround the bulb
with some sort of heat impervious material such as wire mesh, this is often difficult and generally
speaking it is often better to keep the light source outside of the cage. A strategically placed desk
lamp will often be sufficient.

Cages that are made from fish tanks, especially those used for keeping millipedes, harvestmen or any
other organisms that like to have living moss to move around on, or any other cage in which plants are
kept alive and growing in, should have special natural light fluorescent lighting. This sort of lighting
can be acquired from most pet shops where it is sold as lighting for fish tanks. As the lighting is
designed for fish tanks it will natural sit easily on top of a fish tank that is serving as an invertebrate
home, even one that has a wooden framed mesh lid.

However, even if you are not using a fish tank, do not be put off by the fact that the system is designed
for fish tanks. The fish-light and its reflector, if of a compatible size, will sit on top of a wide variety
of cages. Also it is generally possibly to buy the electronics without the reflector lid; these can then
be fitted into a home made lid that fits better the top of the cage. Use aluminium foil glued to 3 ply as
a reflector. The clamps that hold the bulb can be bought separately and attached to the wooden parts
of your homemade reflector quite easily.

If you are going to raise invertebrates that do not occur naturally in your area then you may need to
supply additional heating. Heating is the other most important aspect of most tropical invertebrate
housing. There are several ways in which additional heating can be applied to cages. Perhaps the
simplest method is to keep the cage in a centrally heated room. A temperature of between 22C (70F)
and 30C (84F) is excellent for most terrestrial invertebrates unless stated otherwise. The three other
conventional forms of heating are red light bulbs, hot rocks, and heat pads.

Heat pads are perhaps the easiest and most commonly used form of heating, they can be bought from
most pet shops and even some supermarkets. They are easy to install, especially if you are using a
fish tank or plastic Pal Pen as a cage. It is advisable to place a sheet of polystyrene foam under the
cage and to rest the heat-mat on this. This will reduce the amount of heat the heat mat pumps into
whatever you have the cage resting on and prevent blistering of laminated wood surfaces.

The only problem with the cheaper heat-mats, those that come without thermostats, is that they can be
too efficient, especially in cages that contain 3 or more cm of substrate. This can result in the soil
becoming too hot for your invertebrate pets, also it makes the substrate dry out quite quickly.

The solution here is twofold. Firstly I have found that by placing the cage so that the heat-mat is only
under half of the cage you achieve a double result. One, you have a cage with a gradient of heat in it,
this is an excellent situation as it gives the invertebrates within the cage some choice over the heat
they experience, and secondly you get to heat two cages with one heat-mat if you place them side by
side.

The second part of the solution is to water that portion of the substrate that is above the heat-mat more
often than the unheated section. Remember that the soil when heated from the bottom dries out from
the bottom up, so even while the top of the soil looks OK the bottom can be desert dry. This is
particularly a problem in cages with large millipedes that will burrow to the bottom of the cage to
moult. Once they start their moult they cannot be moved until they are finished and they are most
prone to dehydration at this time. There are further problems associated with millipede moulting but
I will deal with them in the section on millipedes.

Hot rocks were invented for the herpetological market but they are quite useful for heating
invertebrate cages as well. They take a little more effort to set up as they are situated inside the cage,
which necessitates having an electric cable running into the cage. It is important therefore, as
invertebrates are often much smaller, especially when newly hatched, than reptiles and amphibians, to
make sure that the holes that allow the electric cable into the cage are tight fitting or well sealed.

Red light bulbs supply a gentle heat that comes from above and as such there is no danger of the soil
in a cage being over heated by it, this is useful for burrowing animals whose natural response to
overheating is to burrow deeper down into the soil. Which if the soil is heated from below will only
take them into a worse situation.

Personally I have managed to breed a wide range of invertebrates using a combination of heat-mats
and overhead lighting and I would recommend this approach to all beginners. However if you find
yourself becoming a serious breeder there is no substitute for turning the spare bedroom into your
constant temperature invertebrate room.

The third most important feature of any captive environment is water, like heat water is essential but
too much can kill as easily as too little. In general the best way to supply water is in a small bowl, (a
250 gram margarine container is fine if you dont want to buy a ceramic water bowl from a pet
shop). This should be buried so that it is nearly level with the soil surface and filled with sponge, to
stop smaller animals falling in and dieing.
 Bites and Stings.
Most of the arachnids, centipedes and some insects have the potential to bite or to sting, however only
a few are potentially lethal. This does not mean you should not keep them, dogs bite far more people
in USA than spiders, and statistically, the most dangerous animal in the USA, after Homo sapiens, is
the Honey Bee Apis mellifera, yet dogs and bees are kept in huge numbers everywhere. The
important thing is knowledge.

Firstly if you get bitten or stung by any invertebrate and are in pain seek medical advice, dont think
about it, just do it, even if I have told you the animal is non-lethal; this applies particularly to true
spiders of any sort, including tarantulas, any scorpions, any centipedes and assassin bugs.

None of the species I have actually recommended in this book are particularly dangerous under
normal conditions. If you wish to keep the more dangerous species of spider, centipede or scorpion,
as many people do, the choice is yours. Common sense and care in handling should see you through
even the most dangerous animal, however judging animal responses is an art only gained from
experience and anybody who starts off with the more dangerous species before learning the art of
husbandry on the safer species is asking for trouble.

Very few invertebrates are potentially lethal to a healthy adult, however, those with systems
weakened by one or another form of ill health, and children will suffer more if they are bitten.
Having said that, thousands, perhaps even millions, of people keep invertebrates without suffering at
all. I am lucky in that over all the years I have been keeping invertebrates I have never been bitten or
stung by anything more dangerous than a praying mantid, despite a large amount of handling of most
groups. In comparison with this I have been stung and bittern numerous times by a wide range of ants,
beetles, bees and wasps in my work as a professional entomologist, I have even been bitten by
dragonflies, although this is not particularly painful. So the take home message here is treat the
animals with respect, know what you are getting yourself in for, and seek immediate medical advice if
you are unlucky enough to get bitten or stung.
 Handling Invertebrates
There is much disagreement among the invertebrate rearing community on the subject of handling your
invertebrate pet. Many people who have been handling invertebrates for years become blas and
simply tell you everything is simple. Others go to the opposite extreme and recommend you never
handling anything you dont have to. Particularly, it has been suggested, that in a book such as this, I
should say, dont handle anything more dangerous than a laboratory stick-insect.

However given what I know of human nature, and my own history of travelling to schools and shows
loaded down with invertebrates, where the preliminary talk I gave was only suffered so that we could
get to the handling part of the demonstration, I feel this would be rather like the proverbial ostrich
putting its head in the sand. So here, for what it is worth, is my advice on handling invertebrates.

If you want to handle your pets, do not just grab them; take the time to accustom them to your smell
and the feel of your flesh. Let them walk over your hand while it is resting on the floor of the cage a
few times first before lifting your hand away. Always make sure there is another hand for them to
walk onto if they get to the end of the one they are on. Never rush a spider, be careful not to make
threatening gestures, tarantulas normally give you some warning by rearing up, put them down
carefully, do not drop them. Get the animal to walk onto your hand, and then onto other hands, one
exception to this is hissing cockroaches that you will have to actually pick up. If you have to pick a
mantid or stick-insect out of the vegetation do so carefully, take the time to get all six legs free of the
vegetation, remember the animal does not know that you mean it no harm.

Do things little at a time, especially when dealing with children at shows and schools. I like to have
several specimens of any group that is going to be handled so that they can work short shifts, being
passed from sweaty palm to sweaty palm is hard work for a spider, and this applies equally to stick-
insects and roaches. Also when letting children, or adults without experience, handle animals it is
best to work over as table. Get them to keep their hand close to the table and to keep one of your
hands near their wrist. In this way, if they start to get the shakes, you can gentle, but firmly, take hold
of their hand and guide it back to the table, or hold it still while you remove the animal with your
other hand.

This physical contact will also help you transmit reassurance to the other person. With children it is
best to work with them sitting down around a table in small groups, remember millipedes, solifugids,
tarantulas and uropygids all have a tendency to die if dropped from the hands of even a small human if
that human is standing.

If you are unsure of the animals temperament dont use it in group situations, and dont start working
groups with arachnids until you are quite confident with them yourself. The best animals for handling
are hissing cockroaches Gromphadorhina spp., stick-insects, Areaton assperimus , Extatosoma
tiaratum and immature Eurycantha calcarata and or Haaniella spp. However even these species
work better if the animals are accustomed to being handled. If you take the advice here seriously you
should be able to get a great deal of pleasure out of your invertebrate pets. Ultimately however you
must judge from your own experience and live from your own choices. If you are uncertain, play it
safe and dont touch.
 People Like Me
Yes there are many people like you out and about in the world and a fair number of them are
aggregated into groups or societies, some of these societies, such as the Phasmid Study Group (known
as the PSG to its members) are very active, producing regular newsletters and in the case of the PSG
even its own journal. Others such as the Blattodea Culture Group are, like the animals they support,
rather cryptic and rarely seen, sending out a newsletter once a year if you are lucky. For major
groups such as the Lepidoptera, Orthoptera and Coleoptera there are many societies often with local
branches. Then in England there is the Bug Club and in the USA there is the Young Entomologists
Scheme or YES. Addresses for these and a few others can be found at the end of the book. If you are
seriously going to get involved in rearing invertebrates of any kind it is worth looking into joining
some of these clubs and societies.

Death
One thing not to worry about too much is an animal dying. In saying this I am not being callous and of
course you should do your best for any animal you keep in captivity, including invertebrates.
However death is a part of the life cycle of all animals and you cannot possibly study living things
without accepting that death occurs.

I have had people come to me with guilt complexes because some mantid they were keeping died of
some unknown cause. A common sentiment is to regret having kept the animal in captivity. These
people are identifying too closely with their captives. They have fed the mantid flies and crickets for
weeks not caring one wit about the deaths of the prey animals but suddenly get worried that they might
have been responsible for the death of the mantid. This is ridiculous, you are as little, or as much,
responsible for the deaths of all the prey items as you are for the death of the organism that eats them.

This is not really a problem, if left wild the mantid would have eaten other insects, the flies and
crickets may never have been alive at all except for the fact that they were bred to be food, they are
no different to sheep or cattle in this case, or if the flies and crickets were wild caught they would
have probably been eaten by something else.

In the wild practically no insects die of old age and most of them die before they reach maturity. This
is to the good of the world, most insects and other inverts produce huge numbers of young, if they all
lived to maturity and reproduced we would soon be smothered by them. So accept death when it
happens and dont let it interfere with your ability to enjoy the invertebrates when they are alive.

Another common worry is of young raised not all living to maturity, but as I have just said, in the
wild, most do not do so. So if you are raising inverts and if on average more than 15 percent survive
to adulthood then the animals you keep, are, again on average, doing far better than if they had lived
wild. Most people, although they have a few populations crash occasionally, succeed in rearing a far
higher proportion of young than 15 percent average. So do not be too concerned about a few deaths,
as long as you are seriously trying to keep the animals alive, and are being sensible about this then
you should remain at peace with yourself.

Finally most inverts have short lives and they will all die eventually, sometimes within only a few
days of reaching maturity, so do not let yourself expect them to be around forever. An important part
of studying and loving the natural world is accepting it as it is. You kill far more invertebrates driving
home on a single warm summers night than you are ever likely to in a life time of rearing and
studying, keep things in proportion and you will be able to enjoy the invertebrate world throughout
your whole life.
 Part 2; Introduction
The following pages contain instructions for keeping and rearing a series of invertebrates.
Considering that some of the groups here have had whole books written about them it is obvious that
there is more to know about all these groups than what I have included here. However, with a little
common sense these instructions should allow you a fair complement of success.

Life is a far better teacher than books and if you get into the habit of keeping notes of what you have
done, and what your captives have done, you will soon find that you have a acquired a good body of
understanding of both yourself and your captives, one that will help you in the future. Eventually you
will develop a feel for the animals concerned, an intuition into their lives and requirements.

Invertebrates are beautiful, they are living creatures, and their lives are important to them, however
small they seem to us. They are amazing. They are an important part of the world we live in. We
share our planet with them and we cannot live without them. Keeping them is a great way to learn
about the world we live in and a lot of fun.

I wish you a long and joyful life of caring for and learning about our smaller cousins.
 Amblypygi
Introduction

The Amblypygi are an order of Arachnids that are rapidly becoming more popular with amateur
enthusiasts. They are commonly called Whip Spiders or Tail-less Whip Scorpions, and are often
erroneously considered to be extremely poisonous and dangerous. In fact, though they may seem scary
at first view, they are rather amazing animals which are not poisonous at all, nor are they dangerous to
mankind.
Amblypygids are not particularly difficult to rear in captivity, and many species have been
successfully bred, though there are exceptions such as Xerophryunus machadoi and Phrynichodamon
scullyi which have proven to be intransigent to even the most experienced breeders.

The basic requirements are a cage with a substrate that will hold some moisture; sterilised peat or
potting compost will do quite well, providing it is free of pesticides. An adult female will need to be
housed in a cage large enough to allow her and the male to perform the courtship dance without
bumping into the walls etc. Some ventilation is a good idea, and a wall on one side that the animal
can climb on is essential.

This can be simple such as Styrofoam or Plastazote, however bark or cork looks a lot better. Smaller
species will use the wall to moult on and even larger species may well spend much of their time on it.
Stone is not recommended as it will wear down the claws which can result in the animal falling and
dying during a late instar moult. Like many Arachnids these animals like to be able to hide away at
times and a hiding place or two is essential, again bark is excellent, though a flat stone will also be
used providing it is resting on some soil.

Amblypygids are mostly found in rainforest, and have a need for the environment to be both warm and
humid, heating with a red light bulb or an heat-mat is usual, see guidelines in Part 1. Humidity can be
maintained by having ventilation only in the top of the cage and by keeping the substrate moist.
Keeping some woodlice and or Collembola in the cage will help keep down the fungi which can be
dangerous, especially to juveniles.

All Amblypygids are carnivorous and should be fed on live insects such as crickets or Fruit Flies
when very young. The largest species will also tackle small vertebrates if given the opportunity. Most
species will feed on crickets, however if they are reluctant to feed on crickets, try flies, bluebottles,
flesh-flies and or houseflies are all acceptable. The Caribbean species Phrynus longipes reacts
readily to the buzzing of the flies and specimens that have refused to eat terrestrial prey such as
crickets or roaches have happily attacked and eaten large flies.
The usual shallow bowl filled with sponge and water is also useful.

As most Amblypygids are aggressive carnivores it is better to keep them separate except during
breeding, however in a number of species the male may be safely left with the female for several days
at this time.

Courtship is a complicated and intricate affair, much like a ritual dance, involving much touching and
stroking of the female by the male using his antenniform forelegs. Sperm transfer is indirect as in
scorpions. The male deposits a spermatophore on the substrate and then lures the female towards it,
she eventually positions her body so that the sperm can enter her genital tract where she will store
them until she is ovipositing. This courtship and mating always occurs in darkness so you will need a
red-light if you wish to observe it. The exception to the rule here is Charinus acosta from Cuba
which is a parthenogenetic species, with no males known to science, so obviously there is no
courtship.

An indefinite period of time after mating, weeks or even months later, the female will lay her eggs.
The eggs are enclosed in an egg sac that is carried on the underside of the females opisthosoma.
Though liquid when extruded it quickly solidifies and becomes a leathery case she carries around
with her. Oviposition occurs at night and females will abort egg-laying if they are disturbed so be
careful if you wish to observe the process.

The eggs take about 3 to 3.5 months to hatch. Females do not eat until their young have left, so she
should not be fed during this time. If she is offered food she may however be tempted to eat it and if
she does she will drop the egg sac, which will result in the death of this batch of eggs. These first
hatchlings are called praenymphs, they are white and still embryonic, they can hardly move, they cling
to their mother and after 1 to 2 weeks they moult again into a protonymph. The female should remain
motionless during this time and it is best if the cage is not moved, if the praenymphs fall off their
mother they will usually die, trying to replace one would more than likely result in greater
disturbance.

The protonymphs are active hunters, ready to feed and they should be separated from their mother and
from each other. The female can now be fed. The young will go through 7 or 8 moults in just over a
year at 26C. Amblypygids are unique among arachnids in that the adults of both sexes continue to
grow and to moult after they have reached sexual maturity. A female will lose any stored sperm
during a moult and will therefore have to be remated. Adults will live for several years and the larger
species may well survive for a decade or more.

My thanks go to Sean F. Werle of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Morrill Science Center,
UMass, Amherst for reading over and commenting on this section.

References
Peter Weygoldt, (2000). Whip Spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi), Apollo Books Stenstrup,
Denmark (ISBN = 87-88757-46-3)
 Ant-lions

Introduction

Ant-lions are Neuropterans, a part of the same insect order as Green lacewings. They are members
of the family Myrmeleonidae and are holometabolous insects, meaning the larvae do not look much
like the adult and that they undergo a full metamorphosis including a pupal stage. Ant-lions are
spectacular insects as adults however they are sometimes nocturnal, meaning that some species are
seldom seen. It is the larvae however that fascinates most people because of their habit of digging
conical ant traps in sand and sandy soil. These larvae are easy to find in the correct habitat (which
does not include much of the UK) where they are often are quite aggregated and numerous.

Breeding Ant-lions through their whole life cycle is quite difficult because the adults need some
space to fly in and I do not know of anybody who actually does it, however the larvae can be kept in
captivity with relative ease for some of their life.

The best way to keep ant-lion larvae is simply to go out into the field and dig some up, the larvae
normally live at the base of their traps with their bodies pointing downwards at an angle into the sand
below the trap. My experience is that some specimens are not as happy being moved as others,
however I have found that by spending some time in the field and feeding the larvae I plan to take
home a couple of fat ants, about an hour apart, helps ensure they will be active and healthy when I get
them home.

Be sure to dig up enough sand to fill two thirds of the container/s that you are keeping them in. They
can be kept in a variety of containers, for smaller species drink tumblers will do fine, though I have
preferred to keep them in 2 litre ice-cream or margarine containers as these are more stable, smaller
containers are more easily disturbed making more work for the larvae which have to rebuild they
traps each time they collapse. The sand will need to be at least 6 to 8 cm deep for most species,
although they only need the full depth as they reach their full size.
They can be fed on any non-flying insects, although they enjoy ants they will be happy with other
insects, flightless fruit flies are good for smaller larvae. The insect should generally be smaller,
perhaps half the size of the larvae at most. They will live from one to three years before pupating
under the sand. You will know they have pupated because they will stop taking food and the trap will
not be rebuilt if you fill it in. However they sometimes seem just to take a rest and leave their trap
un-repaired for a few days even when they are still feeding so dont be hasty to assume they have
pupated.

If you wish to see the adult put a stick or twig into the sand, carefully so you dont damage the
pupating insect, and cover the whole thing with some fine mesh. When the animal emerges it will
climb the twig and stretch out and dry its new wings. Then you must release it, as they need to fly in
order to exercise their new muscles and to feed.

For this reason I do not recommend keeping them over winter indoors as the warmer temperatures
might stimulate the adult to emerge before the weather is acceptable for it. I suggest either keeping
them, and most definitely the pupa, in an unheated shed over winter, or releasing the larvae as winter
approaches and collecting some more the following spring.

Ultimately however, because of the long duration of their larval life I would suggest that schools and
such merely keep them for a few months and then release them again, of course the length of time
before pupation is dependent on the size of the larva when first acquired and the amount of food it
eats per day. They are very versatile and will grow quickly if food is made available. Larvae will
take several ants nearly as big as themselves in a day, but take a break to moult.

Also you should know that they dont always build very successful traps, and sometimes the ants will
escape, further more sometimes they seem a bit slow catching the prey, sometimes the catch is
instantaneous, but at other time they seem to miss with their bite and then they end up flicking sand at
the ant to help it slide down the sides of the trap.

Some questions you could tackle in a class are: Do all ant-lions build their traps in the same way? Is
the difference (if there is one) due to size or species or both? Are their traps more successful in any
particular grade of sand? Do all species of ants get caught as easily?

Ant-lion larvae can be a fascinating component of any class, for instance the larvae can be offered
different substances to build their traps in. Try a variety of substances such as sugar, flour, fine and
course sands etc.

You can buy Ant-lions online in the USA at Ant-lion Farms http://www.antlionfarms.com/
Photo Copyright :- Gordon Ramel
 Ants

Leaf Cutter Ants, Atta sp. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Ants are an amazingly diverse and successful group of animals. They occur everywhere, and though
it is possible to buy colonies, unless you have a specific desire to be raising Attine leaf cutters, a
rather specialised activity, you are best off collecting some local ants.

Ants are social animals and they live together in colonies, in nearly all species these colonies are
controlled by one or more queens, the remaining ants are either sexuals or workers. The workers are
all female, sexuals are new reproductives, male and female and they can be recognised because they
have wings, they will leave the nest on a nuptial flight to mate before either starting a new colony or
joining and existing one. For more information on the ecology of ants visit my website at
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/ants.html.

Whichever species of ants you collect you need to make sure you get a queen or two with your
workers, or else you will need to collect some newly mated queens as they return to earth after their
nuptial flight, to be successful at this you really need to know which species of ant you are dealing
with. The simplest method way of collecting a species of ant to raise in captivity is to go out into the
field and simply collect some.

Some ants, like the European Leptothorax tuberointerruptus are quite small and live in relatively
small colonies of 50 or less ants. In cases like this the whole colony can be collected by simply
lifting up the slab of rock that they are living under and sucking them all up in a pooter. When
collecting ants with a pooter it is best to have some moist paper towelling wadded into the bottom of
the pooter.

If the species you are collecting is a formic acid producing species the moisture in the paper wad will
absorb the formic acid the ants give off as their response to being captured. If this is not absorbed by
the water it can rapidly build up in the small container and kill the ants. For this reason the jars you
use to transport the ants should also have a wad of moist paper towelling in the base.

If you are planning on collecting a lot of ants, or ant colonies it is worth making yourself a full-time
and ant-pooter and some ant-transport jars by putting a 1cm of plaster-of-Paris in the bottom and
moistening this whenever you go out collecting.

Ants can be housed in a number of ways depending on the size of the colony and what your aims are.
The simplest ant-home is an ant table. This is basically the base of a wooden box with legs. It needs
to have a solid base and 5 to 10 cm of sides depending on its size. For legs simply cut four 20 or 30
cm lengths from a broom handle and nail them to the four corners. The four legs are stood in plant
pot cups half filled with paraffin or antifreeze. Some ants will die in the fluid but most will turn
around and head back up the legs. The whole thing needs to be in a tray, as the ants will throw
anything they do not like over the edges of the box. It can be nice to affix a block of wood in the
centre as a tower and use this for feeding.

To start simply dump the ants and some nesting material into the box and leave them to their own
choices. This was how I first kept ants and it worked wonderfully, I could watch the ants, warmed by
a desk lamp as they scurried about their daily lives in comfort and without disturbing them.

This sort of nest is suitable for medium sized colonies of field and meadow ants such as Lasius spp.,
Myrmica spp. and Tetramorium ceaspitum in Europe.

For larger species, or species that live in larger colonies a larger container is necessary. Wood ants,
Formic spp. or any other large colony ants can be kept in containers such as garbage bin or a baby
bath. The top 15 cm should be coated with a layer of Polytetrafluorethylene that goes under the trade
name of FLUON, and is chemically the same stuff as the TEFLON, see below.

This is an amazing substance that has unusual characteristics of being a liquid that dries to a solid that
is perfectly smooth (has a coefficient of friction that is practically zero) when smeared on to a flat
surface. It is so smooth ants, or other bugs, cannot walk up it, they cannot even walk properly across
it when it is a horizontal plane, for them it is like walking on slippery ice. Naturally enough the
coating needs to be continuous, and, if the cage is used by students, it will need to be replaced as it
becomes damaged. The ants will find and use the slightest bridge across it. It is best applied with a
ball of cotton wool and the container needs to have rounded corners.

Thirdly smaller ants, and smaller colonies can be kept in special ant homes. These can be of the sort
based on two sheets of glass held apart by a wooden frame that borders the panes of glass. The two
planes of glass should be just far enough apart that one ant can walk comfortably between them. The
planes of glass can be stood either vertically or horizontally. The whole frame needs to be designed
so that there is an area which you can open and close to add the ants, their soil and food items. This
is the sort of design many commercial Ant-nests are based on and it has the advantage that the ants can
be seen designing and renovating their nest as well as tending their brood and queen. A horizontal
nest is easier to make and maintain. Whichever you use the open sides, or the top need to be covered
in a piece of black card when the nest is not actually under observation, this is because although the
ants will tolerate some light occasionally they do not really like light in their nest. The feeding area
can be open to the light all the time.

Easier to use, and therefore more common in laboratories are Janet nests. These are cast out of
plaster-of-Paris and have glass tops so that the ants can be observed, they have no soil or sand in
them however. To make your own you have to first choose a design then build yourself a template.
This is most easily done with wood to define the top surface and the sides. Place your glass lids
inside the whole template where they will be, place wooden dummies over these glass sheets to
occupy the space where the holes will later be, connecting tubes can be set up with drinking straws.
Cover every surface where plaster-of-Paris will touch with Vaseline then gently pour in your plaster-
of-Paris mixture.

The table you are working on needs to be level and you should use a piece of wood wider than the
whole frame to ensure that the base is flat. The plaster-of-Paris will set quickly and once the heat has
gone out of it you can turn it over and gently prize out the glass planes and the dummies to allow the
remaining plaster-of-Paris to finish hardening properly.

It is best not to use it for a week before adding ants. The nest should have several sections, one for
water, one for food and two or more for the ants to live in. All the sections, except the water trough
need to be connected in some way. The water trough is to keep the humidity up in the nests. The
sections where the ants live should be covered when the ants are not under observation. A new
colony of ants is easy to add to either of these nests if they are placed in a small vial in the fridge long
enough for them all to become torpid. They can then easily be tipped into their new homes and the
lids put back into place before they are active again.

Adult ants do not need anything to eat except sugar water, 20 percent honey solution is excellent, this
should be made available in a very small glass vial. One with an internal diameter of 3 to 6
millimetres and a length of 20 to 30 millimetres is fine. One end should be blocked permanently and
the other stopped with a small, not too tightly wadded up plug of cotton wool, the sugar solution will
seep into the wool where the ants will be able to drink it.
Ants feed their larvae on a variety of substances and you will have to know the natural diet of your
ants and mimic it. This will either mean animal food or plant seeds. If animal food then some of it at
least should be freshly killed insects, crickets or fruit flies will do nicely. They will also take all
manner of other items if they are chopped fine enough, hard-boiled egg, and cheese and processed
meats, will all be readily taken.

Polytetrafluorethylene or Fluon is available (albeit rather expensively) from:- Whitford Plastics,

10 Christleton Court, Manor Park, Runcorn, Cheshire WA7 1SU UK. Tel. 01928 571000, Fax: 01928
571010.

Leaf Cutter ants of the genus Atta have also become quite popular among institutions and some
individuals despite the fact that they are actually quite challenging to rear and, unless you have good
constant temp facilities, you are unlikely to succeed in keeping them alive for very long.

The primary requirements for successful culture are a constant temperature of 25-26 degrees C, high
humidity, and a nest chamber that facilitates drainage in the event of condensation. Beyond this it is
necessary to have some kind of moat system, preferably with circulating water to remove deposited
rubbish.

You can buy ants online in the USA at Ants Alive. Their website can be found at www.antsalive.com
 Assassin Bugs

Adult White-spotted Assassin Bug Platymeris biguttata. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Assassin bugs, in particular White-eyed Assassin bug or White-spotted Assassin bug, the species
Platymeris biguttata, have become more common in invertebrate shows, and I know that at least one
of the suppliers listed at the end of the book stocks them. They are easy to keep and to breed.
Assassin bugs are true bugs, members of the order Hemiptera and the family Reduviidae and thus add
a bit of additional depth to mini-zoo or other invertebrate collection. They are hemimetabolous
insects, which means they do not form a pupa or undergo a full metamorphosis. What hatches from
the egg is recognisably like the adults except for its different colouration and the lack of wings.
These assassin bugs do have wings but I have never seen them fly.

They can be kept in any sort of cage that has some soil-like substrate and a mesh lid with a heat-mat if
the room is not centrally heated. I found a medium sized fish tank with a wood frame mesh lid did
very well. They are active and voracious carnivores, with an unfortunate tendency to cannibalism if
food isnt plentiful. This can of course be a good way to keep a culture under control, once a culture
is established they tend to breed fairly prolifically.

They will live happily on a diet of crickets, but will also take cockroaches that are smaller than them
just as readily, which means you could keep them on species such as Blatta orientalis.

The eggs are laid on wood and I found they did well on old pieces of wood with many beetle holes in
them, these have the added advantage of giving the nymphs somewhere to hide. The eggs take about 3
weeks to hatch. The nymphs are red at first slowly changing colour to black with 2 white spots as the
reach maturity.

They have a nasty sting, as do all members of this family, and handling is not recommended, however
they can be picked up with tweezers or flicked into a tube with a brush quite readily. I should point
out that many professional entomologists who have been bitten by a wide variety of bugs claim that
Assassin bug bites are the most painful of all. This particularly applies to Wheel bugs, so be careful
and never try picking one up with your bare hands.

Furthermore in some tropical countries some species of Reduviidae are vectors for serious,
sometimes potentially lethal, diseases, so unless you are involved in research stick to the
commercially available species.

Photo Copyright :- Gordon Ramel

 Butterflies and Moths

Laothoe populi: Poplar Hawkmoth Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Butterflies and Moths are the Lepidoptera, mostly butterflies fly during the day and moths fly at night
though there are some moths that fly by day as well, particularly the Hummingbird Hawk Moths or
Sphinx Moths. They are holometabolous insects, meaning they have 6 legs, even those species which
look like they only have 4, and they have a full metamorphosis, i.e. their life cycle goes; egg -- larva
-- pupa -- adult.

Butterflies and moths are beautiful insects, both as caterpillars and as adults. Their life cycles are
varied and fascinating and rearing them is both fun and educational. Many people enjoy breeding
them and it is possible to acquire literature on raising them quite easily, here I will give a brief
outline of general techniques and list some species with their food plants. However if you seriously
want to become a butterfly or moth breeder you will want your own greenhouse or conservatory to
breed butterflies in, not just a few cages, and you will also want to seek out specialist literature.
What I am writing here is for people with a casual interest who may only ever want to breed 2 or 3
species in their lives.

Before I start, I would like to suggest that the simplest way to breed butterflies and moths is in your
own garden where they can fly free. Yes in doing this they risk predators and parasite but this is
normal in life, by planting a garden for butterflies and other insects, you not only get a garden full of
wonderful insects but you also benefit from the beauty of the flowers. Lists of suitable plants can be
found on a number of websites, try doing a Google search on Butterfly Gardening. Though if it is
specific species you are interested in then planting the larval food plants of this species will be a
good idea.
How you start will depend on how you acquire you animals, here I will assume you are starting with
eggs (ova), and if you have caught or bought caterpillars or pupae you will need to start from the
relevant part of the text. The life cycle is a cycle after all and it is not important where you begin
your observations. All the equipment described here can be bought from entomological suppliers;
however most of it can also be made from easily obtainable materials or from otherwise discarded
items.

A collection of plastic food containers of various sizes with and without nylon mesh aeration is well
worth maintaining. It is also worth buying a metre or three of the black nylon mesh sold by
entomological suppliers and sometimes by plant nurseries, and perhaps a metre or two of fly screen.
It is good common sense to have equipment available before you need it, this can save the lives of
caterpillars and allow you to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. You will also want some
glass jars, or the lower halves of drink bottles, some cotton wool or oasis (available from flower
arrangers), a couple of small artists paint brushes, a roll of paper towelling some elastic bands and a
ball of string or twine.

Cutting most of the centre out of the lids of margarine and ice-cream containers and then either gluing
on some mesh/fly-screen or simply using the rest of the lid to hold some mesh/fly-screen down will
make you a fine set of cages.

The eggs of butterflies and moths are small and delicate and it is best to move them as little as
possible, if they are glued to some vegetation cut away as much as possible without actually touching
the eggs. You need to keep the eggs in a small container, a plastic food box is fine, at this stage it
should not have holes or mesh ventilation. Gases will diffuse through most modern plastics and the
eggs need very little oxygen.

Humidity is more important and a little moisture needs to be added everyday by opening the container
and breathing over the eggs a few times and then closing the container again, no food plant material
should be put in the container as this will cause a build up of carbon dioxide that will kill the eggs.
The container should be checked 2 or 3 times a day if possible. Keep the box away from direct
sunlight and at room temperature.

Once the eggs have hatched you will want to move the larvae to a slightly larger box 10cm x 5cm x
5cm or something similar will be fine, too large a box will result in the larvae losing track of where
the food is. Place a piece of paper towelling in the bottom of the container, add 1 or 2 food leaves
and then carefully, using the moistened paintbrush transfer the tiny newly hatched larvae to the food
leaves and replace the lid, opening the container 2 or 3 times a day will ensure sufficient oxygen at
this stage. Most newly hatched larvae will eat their own eggshells so be sure not to disturb a
caterpillar while it is still on the egg.

Cleaning is important; frass (the official term for insect dung) and uneaten foods attract pests such as
mites and generate moulds that will also attack the caterpillars. Cleaning out the containers regularly
will enhance your chances of successfully rearing your larvae to pupation. During the early days of
the caterpillars life the old food and frass should be removed everyday and fresh food added. Fresh
food everyday is vitally important. Frass is a good indicator of the health of your caterpillars; as long
as it is dry your caterpillars are OK.

Lepidoptera go through 5 larval instars and the first couple are passed through quite quickly, thus your
little caterpillars will probably have their first moult on day 2 or 3 of their new lives. Most species
of Lepidoptera will be OK in this container for a week or two, while the smaller species may be able
to spend their whole life in such containers. The Lepidoptera show a considerable range in size, and
a whole group of moths, called micro-moths, can be less than 1 cm long as full grown caterpillars,
where as others are that long when they first hatch.

Now that your caterpillars are getting larger it is necessary to re-house them into a larger container
and this container will need to have ventilation. It may be sensible at this stage to start feeding the
caterpillars from potted plants if this is possible, but do not worry if it is not. In either case your cage
will want to be 30cm by 20cm by 20cm or larger depending on species and it needs to have a door of
some sort, normally the front.

The easiest way to make such a cage these days is with a few sheets of 3 ply tacked onto a wooden
frame, a mesh roof and door will allow in light and air. Glass and or Perspex are not recommended
as condensation collecting on the sides can cause trouble for the caterpillars.

When moving caterpillars either into new housing, or when changing their food, it is advisable not to
touch them directly but to cut the bits of vegetation they are on out and place them on the new food, the
caterpillars will then move readily to the new food.

Inside the cage you will need either a potted plant, or a jar with oasis or sand in it and filled with
water, you can stand the food plant in this, the water will keep the food fresh and the oasis or sand
will prevent the larvae from drowning themselves. Some sprigs of the food plant should be touching
the floor and the sides of the cage to ensure that caterpillars that fall off can get back to the food.
Food should be renewed daily if cut food is supplied, or else potted plants should be changed as
regularly as needed.

Most butterflies will pupate on the food plant or on the sides or roof of the container, most moths will
seek the bottom of the cage and some will require some leaf litter so it is best, as the larvae reach
maturity, to supply a shallow container of compost or friable sterile soil with a layer of dead leaves
and or grass for them to pupate in.

With care the pupae, cocoons in the case of moths, or chrysalis in the case of butterflies can be
collected and stored until they emerge. Moth cocoons can be stored in a box in the dark and can be
checked every day for emerging adults once the correct season has arrived, otherwise they can stored
in an open box in a flight cage. Butterfly chrysalises can be removed from whatever they are attached
to with a strong pair of tweezers providing only the threads the chrysalis is attached by are gripped
and not the chrysalis itself, these can then be re-hung with a pin through the attachment threads in a
flight cage or emerging cage. Hanging flight cages can be bought from entomological suppliers and
are useful for these purposes.

Another popular way to rear larvae of both moths and butterflies is on plants raised in larger plant
pots. This has many advantages, in that the food is always fresh, maintenance is reduced and cleaning
becomes unnecessary. The simplest method is to grow your plants in pots slightly larger than they
need and well in advance of your needing them so that the plants have plenty of leaves when your
caterpillars are feeding on them.

In some cases this can mean thinking a year ahead. Once you have your potted plant well grown the
simplest caging method is to bend two pieces of heavy gauge wire into U shapes and the push the two
ends of each piece deep into the soil of the pot so that they form a cross over the top of the plant.
This simple frame will support a cloth or mesh bag over the pot-plant to contain and protect the
caterpillar/s. The cloth should reach down around the sides of the pot and can be held tight with an
elastic band and two short pieces of string. Choose a strong elastic band such as postmen use and tie
the two pieces of string to it such that when the elastic band is laid flat they run out from opposite
ends. This can be tied around both the pot and the mesh with the elastic of the elastic band
maintaining a tight seal.

This is also a good way to get females to lay eggs, and if the mesh frame reaches out beyond and
above the plant by 30cm and 40cm respectively it can also be used to mate some species at the same
time.

A final technique related to the above method, but which is useful for species that feed on trees and
cannot be kept in a pot, is called sleeving. Sleeving involves covering part of a branch of a tree with
fine mesh; normally this is the end of a branch that can be reached from the ground. First the branch is
cleared of all undesired invertebrates. Then the sleeve, whilst open at both ends is slipped over the
branch and arranged so the leaves in the branch hang as naturally as possible and about 2 cm of
sleeve hangs beyond the end of the branch.

The sleeve can be as long as you like, but should not be so wide there are folds hanging down. Then
the top of the sleeve is tied off tightly around the branch. If the desired caterpillars are not already
on the branch, they, or pieces of leaf with them on are placed on the branch within the sleeve and the
sleeve is tied off below the end of the branch. Every week at first, then every few days as the larvae
grow the lower end of the sleeve should be untied and the frass allowed to fall out. Insect frass
makes excellent compost by the way.

The only other problem you are liable to encounter is with diapause. Diapause is where the insect
takes a break from active life and finds somewhere safe to rest, during this time it reduces its
metabolism to practically zero and it can survive for months unmoving without food or water. The
role of diapause in an insects life, and it is not just butterflies and moths that include diapause in
their lives, is to allow the insect to survive a period of time when the weather is inclement and food
hard to find.

Thus in temperate countries many insects diapause over winter to avoid the cold and absence of
flowers, this is called hibernation, whilst in tropical countries many insects diapause during the dry
season, this is called aestivation. Diapause is often initiated, at least in some temperate species, by
the amount of daylight experienced by the caterpillars.

A system of 16 hours daylight and 8 hours night will generally avoid diapause. Another option is
simply to allow the species to go through its natural cycle by storing the cage with the diapausing life
stage in a shed or unheated room. Different species of Lepidoptera diapause in different life stages;
egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult are all used by one species or another as the stage in which to
diapause.

As well as food plants for the larvae you will on occasions need to feed the adults. Honey diluted to
10% strength, (1 ml honey to 9mls water) offered in small pads of cotton wool, or in a small jar lid
filled also with cotton wool will do for most species, although some may prefer a squishy banana
lying on a saucer in a little sugar and water, whichever the case the food needs to be fresh every day.

The cotton wool needs to be new each day because the evaporation during the day will result in the
honey strength increasing if you simply top it up. Stronger solutions of honey have an unfortunate
tendency to crystallise inside the butterflys proboscis thus preventing it from feeding any more.

Below is a list of some popular and relatively easy species.

In the UK
Aglais urticae, Small Tortoise Shell, larvae feed on Stinging Nettles Urtica dioica, ideally the
nettles should be potted but otherwise they need to be fresh at least once a day, twice a day is better.
There are exceptions to every rule and Stinging Nettles are an exception to one of the general rules
mentioned above, do not stand the nettles in water as this causes them to take up too much water
which can kill the caterpillars. The larvae live communally for the first few instars then tend to
disperse. They pupate on the walls or roof of the cage and will emerge 10 to 14 days later. Diapause
is through Winter as an adult.

Saturnia pyri Giant Peacock Moth. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Vanessa atalanta, Red Admiral, the larvae feed on Stinging Nettles Urtica dioica, ideally the nettles
should be potted but otherwise they need to be fresh at least once a day, twice a day is better. There
are exceptions to every rule and Stinging Nettles are an exception to one of the general rules
mentioned above, do not stand the nettles in water as this causes them to take up too much water
which can kill the caterpillars. The larvae live individually and will roll up a leaf to hide in, tying
it up with silk.

Pieris brassicae, Large White, the larvae will feed on many members of the cabbage family both
wild and cultivated. Caterpillars hatch after a week and grow quickly, it is not advisable to release
more than a very few of these adults as they are a pest of garden produce. They overwinter as a pupa.

Argynnis aglaia, Dark Green Fritillary, this and many other (but not all) species of temperate
Fritillary feed on Violets Viola spp. and have the habit of hibernating over wintering as a larvae
among the roots and leaf bases of the violets they feed on. So if you are interested in breeding them it
will be necessary to establish a culture of violets, Heath Dog Violet Viola canina and Marsh Violet
Viola palustris are good general species, but some Fritillaries need specific species of Violet. They
should be raised either in a cool greenhouse where things can be left pretty much to nature though the
pots should be put out of the sun during winter to ensure there are no premature awakenings. Next
best is to use pots with a wire mesh frame, when the plants die down in autumn the pots can be moved
into an unheated, but lighted shed and brought out into the sun again next spring. Queen of Spain
Fritillary Issoria lathonia needs Viola tricolor.

Anthocaris cardamines, Orange Tip, a simple species to rear whose larvae feed on members of the
Cabbage family such as Charlock Sinapsis arvensis, Dames Violet Hesperis matronalis and Cuckoo
Flower Cardamine pratensis and that over winters as a pupa. The only special consideration is that
the larvae are carnivorous so you can only rear one larva per plant. Therefore it is best to raise a
number of plants in small pots and then place them and the pupa out in a large flight chamber in early
spring.

Saturnia pyri, European Emperor Moth, Europes largest moth this is not an easy species to rear.
The larvae will feed on Apple Malus domestica, Cherry Prunus avium and Privet Ligustrum
vulgare. The adults should mate if kept in the light for a few hours in the flight cage before being left
in the dark. The larvae need to be kept warm 25C to 30C (75F to 80F). They diapause as a pupa that
should be kept at around 18C or 65F. The pupa may take 2 years to emerge if it gets colder than this.

Laothoe populi Poplar Hawk Moth, this very beautiful moth is common all across Europe and the
Middle East. It is easily raised and the larvae feed on Poplars Populus spp. it diapauses over winter
as a pupa but will produce several generations a year on a long-day light regime. They pupate deep
in the soil and at least 10 cm of leaf mould topped by leaf litter should be made available to them.

Phalera bucephala, Buff Tip Moth, an interesting moth that uses cryptic mimicry of a broken branch
stub in the adult form. It is an easy, and educationally useful species to rear, the larvae will eat just
about anything, (the proper term for this is polyphagous), but they prefer Hazel Corylus avellana,
Lime Tilia vulgaris or Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna. It over winters as a pupa in soil so 5 cm of
leaf mould should be supplied.

Stauropus fagi, Lobster Moth, so named because of the form of the caterpillar this is an interesting
species to rear. The larvae feed on Beech Fagus sylvaticus, Birch Betula spp., Hazel Corylus
avellana or Oak Quercus spp. and sleeving a host plant is the best way to rear it, though if you are
only raising a few it can be easily raised in doors. They diapause over winter as a pupa up in the
leaves of the tree, so leave them there.

In the USA
Danaus plexippus, Monarch or Milkweed, larvae feed on milkweeds Asclepias spp., Adults are
unlikely to mate at temperatures below 28C so they need to be warm. The eggs hatch in about a week
and sometimes can finish growing in 2 weeks. Two larvae to a healthy milkweed plant is the limit,
Winter diapause as adult.

Dione vanille, Gulf Fritillary, Larvae feed on Passion flower, Passiflora spp. Females lay eggs
singly which hatch in less than a week, the adult will emerge from the chrysalis after about 20 days.
No diapause.

Heliconius charitonius, Zebra, the larvae feed on Passionflower, Passiflora spp. no diapause, (see
below).

Anthocaris midea, Falcate Orangetip, A simple species to rear whose larvae feed on members of the
Cabbage family such as Garlic Mustard Alliaria officinalis, Field Cress Lepidium campestre and
Bittercresses Cardamine spp. and that over winters as a pupa. The only special consideration is that
the larvae are carnivorous so you can only rear one larva per plant. Therefore it is best to raise a
number of plants in small pots and then place them and the pupa out in a large flight chamber in early
spring.

Papilio cresphontes, Giant Swallowtail, the larvae, which in early instars are bird dropping mimics,
feed on cultivated citrus such as Prickly Ash or Lime, Zanthoxylum fagara. This is a large butterfly
and a greenhouse or conservatory is really needed to allow the adults room to fly and mate, a common
species in Southern USA it has no diapause.

Samia (Philosamia) cynthia, Ailanthus Moth, this is an Indian species that was introduced into the
USA in an attempt to establish a silk industry. The larvae feed preferentially on and Tree of Heaven
Ailanthus altissima, but you can also try Privet Ligustrum vulgare though the resulting adults may be
smaller. The adults pair easily, especially if placed in bright light for a couple of hours before being
returned to the dark. One female will lay over 100 eggs so you will soon have plenty.

Actias luna, Luna Moth, one of N. Americas most delightful moths this is a relatively easy,
polyphagous species. Popular plants to rear it on include Cherries Prunus spp, on Beech Fagus
sylvaticus, Birch Betula spp., and Hazel Corylus avellana. It diapauses over winter as a pupa in the
ground so you should supply it with 10 cm of leaf mould to pupate in then store the pupa as they are in
a cool shed or unheated part of the house. However under a long-day light regime and warm
temperatures it can be continuously brooded.
 Papilio machaon Common European Swallowtail. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Citheronia regalis Hickory Horned Devil, the larvae feed on Hickory Hicoria minima in the wild
but in captivity it can also be reared on Privet Ligustrum vulgare or Hazel Corylus avellana. The
larvae of these are a wonderful creation and well worth the effort of breeding, though they are not
difficult they have only one generation a year. The pupa which is formed underground is the over
wintering stage so supply leaf mould as above and they should be left for 10 or 11 months after
pupation.

Hyalophora cercropia Cercropia Moth, one of the largest of the moths of N. America this species
will always be popular, especially as it is not difficult to rear. The larvae do best on Box Elder Acer
negundo and Sugar Maple A. saccharinum, though it will also feed on Cherries Prunus spp. and
apples Malus domestica among others. This is a large caterpillar and good supplies of food plant
will be necessary if even a few caterpillars are to be reared, sleeving is a popular method, especially
for later instar larvae, though they can be raised entirely in doors. Care should be taken to make sure
the young larvae are not crowded or too humid. Over winters as a pupa wrapped in dead leaves on
the host tree.

Other species commonly available

Heliconidae A number of species of Heliconidae are easily available these days such as Heliconius
erato and H. melpomone. These, and other common heliconids, feed on Passionflower vines,
Passiflora spp., and they can be bred through one or two generations in a large cage. They will do
much better in a green house or conservatory where they will continue for generation after
generation. However you choose to breed them you will need to keep the temperature up to 27C
(80F) all year round, sun lamps will be almost compulsory in a green house or conservatory as will
growing a continuing selection of nectar plants. In ideal conditions the generation time from egg to
adult can be as short as 35 days. The adults live for as much 5 months increasing their value as a live
display species.

Vanessa cardui, Painted Lady, An unusual species in that it occurs both in Europe and in North
America, as well as Africa, much of Asia and parts of Australia. The larvae feed on a wide range of
plants particularly Thistles Cirsium spp. and Mallows Malva domestica. An easy species to breed,
it has no diapause and in colder areas simply dies off during the winter and is replaced the following
spring by new migrants.

Nymphalis antiopa, Camberwell Beauty in the UK, but called Mourning Cloak in the USA, this is
another species with a wide distribution. The larvae feed on a number of trees particularly Willow
Salix spp. in Europe but also Birch, Elm and Cotton Wood in the USA. The adults are long lived and
the species will diapause over winter as an adult but it does not like temperatures below 0C. If you
do not have a greenhouse or conservatory with a willow growing in a tub you will need to mate the
adults in a flight cage then place the female in a sleeved branch of a tree, or else cut fresh branches
for her to lay on, however most people do better rearing it out of doors.

Antheraea pernyi, Oak Silk Moth, the larvae will feed on a number of tree species, I have raised it
on Apple Malus spp., but also try Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna and Evergreen Oak Quercus ilex.
This is perhaps the easiest moth in the world to breed after silkworms, it will diapause as a pupa but
only if you let it get cold. It is happy at room temperature and likes to have its food plants misted
with fresh water once a day. A. paphia, is also called Oak Silk Moth and the culture instructions for
it are the same as for A. pernyi. A. peryi came from South China originally whereas A. Paphia comes
from Northern India. A. roylei is very similar and also called Oak Silk Moth but comes from the
Himalayas, and is, if anything, easier to rear as the larvae feed on common oak Quercus spp.

Actias selene, Indian Moon Moth, these are very popular moths whose larvae feed on a variety of
plants including Rhododendron. The only real problem is with getting the adults to mate, they do not
like being disturbed and the females will not remate, so if mating is disturbed you may get few
fertile eggs. However many amateur enthusiasts have success by simply giving the moths the freedom
of a room for a night they can easily be recaptured the following morning and returned to a flight cage
with suitable food plants for the female to lay on.

Attacus atlas, Atlas Moth, a very large and popular species from India and Thailand whose larvae
feed on Privet Ligustrum vulgare. This species mates fairly easily and diapauses over winter as a
pupa, the larvae hang upside down from the food plant.

Loepa katinka, Golden Emperor Moth, larvae feed most profitably on Grape Vines. The larvae are
visually different in nearly every instar and are professional escape artists so they need to be reared
in a well-made flight cage. They pupate in the soil so you will need to supply a good surface area
(depending on number of caterpillars) of leaf mould topped with leaf litter; 5 cm or more is
recommended, they diapause over winter as a pupa.

Dictyoploca simla, Simla Silkmoth, this is another beautiful species from Japan which is worth
rearing in order to see the caterpillar which is covered in long blue hairs. The larvae feed on
Cherry, Prunus avium, this is not an easy species because they diapause over winter as an egg. The
eggs are laid in rows on twigs which can be kept in a lunch box wrapped in tissue paper in an outside
shed or an unheated part of the house depending how cold your winters are, until the Spring when they
can be sleeved, tied to a growing branch or treated as in the general section. The adults, which will
emerge in Oct/Nov, will need to be in the flight cage in the daylight for several hours before being
placed in the dark to ensure mating.

Further notes.

Many larger species of moths like to have a largish area to fly in before mating. If you are not rearing
in a greenhouse of conservatory then you will need to find a way to supply them with this. If you have
a tidy bedroom, or any tidy room where hiding spaces are few then you can release them in this and
search for them in the morning, be careful searching the curtains, they may well be up near the rail
tucked in out of sight.

I have to admit that a tidy room is something I never have, and when I was rearing large moths I built
an extensible flight cage from 3 very large cardboard boxes. Each of these boxes was about a metre
square, I cut one side out of each of two and two sides out of the third. These could then be clipped
together around the top with spring clips to make a flight cage 1 metre wide by 1 metre high and
nearly 3 metres long. Thus it filled the entire floor space of my living room. I ran some masking tape
over the inside joints each time I set it up and covered it with black nylon mesh. The mesh was held
on by the spring clips and numerous additional smaller clips. With a pot full of food plants this
served me excellently well.

When the moths had laid, or I had seen a mating they were removed to a smaller container and after
removal of the masking tape the cage could be folded into 1 metre square and stored in the spare
bedroom along with much other such equipment and numerous invertebrates.

I would also like to say that it is worth trying any species of Lepidoptera you find available, do not be
put off by people saying things are difficult, providing you have basic information, are sensible, and
are willing to put in the effort you can make your own success. When I was younger I bred Deaths
Head Hawk Moths the first time I tried, without too many problems and I was surprised to learn
afterwards that they were supposed to be difficult. OK I already had a lot of experience handling and
breeding other invertebrates including moths, however I remain convinced that if I had thought they
were going to be difficult before I started simply because everybody said they were difficult, I would
have found more problems than I did.

Breeding butterflies and moths, both large and small is an addictive hobby and I wish you much joy in
it.

References
M. Brookes, (1991). The Complete Guide to British Moths (Macrolepidoptera). Jonathan
Cape London.
P.A. Opler and V. Malikul, (1992). Peterson Field Guides: Eastern Butterflies. Houghton
Mifflin, Boston and New York.
A. R. Pittaway, (1993). The Hawkmoths of the Western Palaearctic. Harley Books
Colchester UK.
J.L.Stone and H.J. Midwinter, (1975). Butterfly Culture. Blanford Press, Poole UK.
J.W. Tilden and A.C. Smith, (1986) Peterson Field Guides: Western Butterflies.Houghton
Mifflin, Boston and New York.
 T. Tolman, (1997). Butterflies of Britain and Europe (Collins Field Guide). Harper Collins,
London and New York
P. M. Tuskes, J. P. Tuttle, and M. M. Collins, (1996). The Wild Silk Moths of North America.
Cornell University Press Ithica and London

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Papilio machaon photographed wild in Greece Photo copyrighted to Gordon Ramel

Butterflies and moths are amongst the easiest of invertebrates to photograph and now that we
have digital cameras many people prefer to collect butterfly and moth photos and leave the real
animals to enjoy the freedom of the open air and the sunshine that they were born to.
 Ground Beetles

Carabus intricatus, from the

UK. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Ground beetles are members of the insect order Coleoptera as their name implies. Within the
Coleoptera they are members of the family Carabidae which is one of the largest and most successful
families of beetles in the world. There are more than 40,000 species of Ground Beetles known to
science, most of which are found in the tropics, Britain has around 350 species. Not only they are
fascinating and easy to find, but they are relatively easy to keep in captivity and will readily
reproduce, so that you can study all of the life cycle.

Plastic storage boxes or washing-up bowls make suitable cages to keep the beetles in. A layer of peat
or coir compost, or other sterile leaf mould, mixed with sand needs to be put in the bottom. This must
be kept moist (but not wet) at all times. A shelter must be provided, this can be a flat stone, piece of
bark or an up- turned flower pot saucer.

Most Ground Beetles are omnivorous and can be fed on a variety of foods such as fly larvae, small
seeds, ant pupae (sold as ant eggs for fish food), aphids or any other small insects. Some species
however are specialist feeders, i.e. Harpalus rufipes the Strawberry Seed Beetle feeds on seeds,
Loricera pilicornis the Springtail Beetle feeds on Collembola and Abax parallelopipedus and
Cychrus caraboides feed on slugs and snails. The larvae are generally carnivorous and are always so
if the adults are. Most species of Ground Beetles are likely to be cannibalistic in captivity. This
isn't too much of a problem if they are kept well fed and not overcrowded, but it may be a good idea
to take out any larvae found and keep these in a separate container to prevent cannibalism. Abax
parallelopipedus is a species which is not cannibalistic and therefore makes a very good pet or study
animal. It can often be found under rotten logs in temperate woodlands.

Different Ground Beetle species are unofficially classified as either Spring or Autumn breeders.
Spring breeders such as Pterostichus cupreus over winter as adults while Autumn breeders such as
Nebria brevicollis over winter as larvae.

In general the number of eggs produced depends on nutrition, environmental factors such as moisture,
temperature, and the age of the beetle. Research indicates that Carabids in the wild seldom reach their
reproductive capacity. As with most predators, egg production is related to food supply. It has been
found that the number of eggs produced is inversely related to body mass hence large species lay
fewer eggs. It is also known that autumn breeders tend to lay more eggs than spring breeders. Further
more members of a given species tend to lay more eggs in disturbed conditions than in stable ones.

In the first year females will lay 5-10 eggs in those species with egg guarding behaviour, but up to
several hundred in those that don't. Eggs are laid all in one batch or as several batches per season and
in some species over several seasons. In their second year most species lay far fewer or no eggs.
Some species lay their eggs individually on the surface of the soil while others dig holes and lay their
eggs in these before covering them over with soil. A few species dig nests with chambers and
provide brood care in the form of guarding the eggs and licking them to remove fungal spores (e.g.
Harpalus spp.). The eggs normally take at least five days to hatch depending on the species and
environmental conditions.

There are usually 3 larval instars before pupation; however species of Harpalus and Amara have
only 2 larval instars, while other species, particularly those which are ant or termite symbionts, have
four larval instars. Many species diapause (overwinter hibernation or summer aestivation).

Generally development takes about a year from being an egg just laid to laying eggs, though it can take
up to 4 years in harsh conditions, i.e. Carabus problematicus is univoltine up to 800 metres in height
but semi-voltine (takes two years to develop) above that. Other species such as Carabus auronitens
are more flexible and adapt to the prevailing conditions. A pupal chamber is constructed in the soil.
They normally take at least 5 or more days to emerge from the pupa.

References

Brandmayr, P., den Boer, J. and Weber, F. (Eds) (1983) Ecology of Carabids: The synthesis of Field
Study and Laboratory Experiment. Wogeningen. Centre Agric. Publ. Doc. 196pp

Desender, K., Dufrere, M. Loreau, M., Luff, M.L. and Maufait, J.P. (Eds) (1994)
Carabid Beetles: Ecology and Evolution. Ser. Entomol. 51 Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic 474pp

Erwin, T.L., Ball, G.E., Whitehead, D.L. and Halfern, A.L. (Eds) (1979) Carabid Beetles: Their
Evolution, Natural History and Classification. The Hague: Junk 635pp

Forsythe, T.G. (2000) Common Ground Beetles. Naturalists Handbooks 8: Richmond Publishing
74pp

Lovei, G.L. and Sunderland, K.D. (1996) Ecology and Behaviour of Ground Beetles
(Coleoptera: Carabidae). Annual review of Entomology 41: 231-256.
 Centipedes

Scolopendra heros Photo copyrighted to Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Centipedes are members of the phylum Arthropoda which makes them relatives of the Insects and
Arachnids. However they are as biologically distant from insects as the Arachnids are and are a
taxonomically distinct group at the same level, they are called Myriapoda. Within the Myriapoda are
several subclasses, one of these, the Chilopoda, contains the centipedes.

Centipedes are all aggressive carnivores, particularly the large surface dwelling species that are
made available by commercial suppliers. Centipedes have large jaws and poison glands, the toxicity
of the poison seems to be greater in larger species though this has not really been studied, one person
only, a young girl bitten on the head, is known to have died from a centipede bite.

All species in the genus Scolopendra are potentially dangerous, and some are potentially lethal. This
should make it obvious that extreme care needs to be taken in keeping and breeding these larger
species. Smaller species, such as those in the genus Lithobius can be kept more easily and are
interesting to study. Scutigera is also safe to culture, but its extremely active life style does not make
it such a good captive. Be warned it can climb excellently and is extremely fast, and it will bite,
although its poison does not seem to have much, or any, effect on humans.

All centipedes need to be kept in containers with well fitted lids, preferably a mesh lid to allow for
adequate ventilation. Scutigera coleoptera will spend more time on the underside of the lid than
anywhere else unless you supply it with an alternative, preferably rough rock ceiling to hunt on.

All Centipedes are primarily nocturnal, or below ground hunters and are shy of the light, therefore
need to be have a soil-like substrate, a number of species, will burrow if this is deep enough,
otherwise they should have bark to hide under. The substrate needs to be damp, or else the surface
should be misted with moisture daily. Be careful when misting some of the larger species as this can
excite them.

The larger species are all tropical or subtropical and will need heating, a heat-mat under half of the
tank will normally do very well, see notes in Part 1. If the cage is larger it is better to keep it in a
centrally heated room where a tropical fish style light over the tank will supply sufficient additional
heat and maintain growth in the mosses on the logs.

Centipedes are active animals and can move very quickly and being long bodied gives them a distinct
advantage when it com to escaping from cages. As with all carnivores there is not a great deal of
cage maintenance but cages do need cleaning occasionally. During such occasions it is a good idea to
place the cage in a larger container so that if the animal escapes there is a fare chance of recapturing
it. A large 30 cm sized pair of tweezers, or a set of reptile tongs are essential for handling the larger
animals.

Centipedes are carnivores and need to be fed live food, the size of the food items needs to be related
to the size of the animal, with the largest species, Scolopendra galapagoensis and Scolopendra
gigantea taking young mice easily and the largest cockroaches. Most species are happy to be fed
once or twice a week.

Having said all of this centipedes are fascinating and often, surprisingly, very beautiful animals, and
keeping them and studying them can be quite rewarding. Though they can be kept in cages as small
twice as their own body length in length and less wide they will not be happy like this and any
behaviour you observe will not be normal. To have some hope of observing natural behaviour the
cage should be at least twice as wide and three times as long as the animal, bigger is better.

A well set up cage will not only allow you to keep your animal healthier but also more safely as the
animal will be less aggressive if well housed and if it has somewhere to hide. For the most part
centipedes need to be kept singly, especially if the cage is not large, however if the cage is large
enough with plenty of cover and food is plentiful a pair can be kept together. Remember, as with all
things in life, it is better to do, or in this case keep, a few things well than many badly.

The basic requirements for all the larger species are a temperature of around 25C = 78F, a relative
humidity of around 70%, 5 to 10 cm of substrate (2 of sand and 1 of peat mix is good) and a piece of
bark or stone to hide under.

Males spin a small web onto which they deposit a spermatophore for the female to take up,
sometimes there is a courtship dance and sometimes the males just leave them for the females to find.
In temperate areas egg laying occurs in Spring and Summer but in subtropical and tropical areas there
appears to be little seasonality to Centipede breeding.

The Lithobiomorpha, and Scutigeromorpha lay their eggs singly in holes in the soil, the female fills
the hole in on the egg and leaves it. The young usually hatch with only 7 pairs of legs and gain the rest
in successive moults. Scutigera coleoptera the American House Centipede hatches with only 4 pairs
of legs and in successive moults has 5,7,9,11,15,15,15 and 15 before becoming a sexually mature
adult. It takes about 3 years for S. coleoptera to achieve adulthood, however, like Millipedes,
Centipedes are relatively long lived when compared to their insect cousins, the European Lithobius
forficatus can live for 5-6 years and larger species will live longer.

Females of Geophilomorpha and Scolopendromorpha show far more parental care, the eggs, 15 - 60
in number, are laid in a nest in the soil or in rotten wood, the female stays with the eggs, guarding and
licking them to protect them from fungi. In some species the female stays with the young after they
have hatched, guarding them until they are ready to leave. Scolopendra females will wrap themselves
around their young as well as their eggs. If disturbed the females tend to either abandon the eggs or
young, or even worse to eat them, abandoned eggs tend to fall prey to fungi rapidly, thus breeding is
difficult to study in these species.

S. galapagoensis is probably the largest species in the world with specimens recorded at 40cm. The
Giant Desert Centipede, S. heros is the largest species in USA and is not officially recorded as
exceeding 20 cm. European Banded Centipede, S. cingulata, at 9 to 10 cm is the largest species in
Europe. It is one of the least dangerous Scolopendra species in terms of venom toxicity and is a good
beginner species. Other commercially available species include:- Puerto Rican Giant Centipede,
probably S. gigantea; Tanzanian Blue Leg Centipede, probably S. morsitans; Vietnamese or Asian
Giant Centipede Scolopendra sp.; Giant Peruvian Centipede Scolopendra sp..
 Chironomids

Chironomus tentans
photographed in the wild in Greece. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Chironomids are small mosquito shaped flies whose larvae live most commonly in freshwater.
Unlike mosquitoes they do not feed on blood and therefore are no danger to people. Unfortunately
many species are not that easy to breed in captivity because the males need to form large swarms.

Like mosquitoes they are useful in many ways in the laboratory, and the larvae, often called
bloodworms are a useful food for aquatic invertebrates and vertebrates. Chironomus tentans is a
common species in temperate habitats of the northern hemisphere and a good species to culture
because it does not need to swarm and will reproduce easily in the confined space of a 30 cm high
fish tank with a tight fitting mesh/screen lid.

It is best to prepare your fish tank in advance by placing a sod of earth, 3 cm deep upside down into
the tank, if you do not wish to dig up the garden some home-made well mature compost will do, tamp
it down well. Whatever you use, it is the organic content that is important, also you should be sure
that the soil or compost is completely free of man-made chemicals, particularly ----cides of various
sorts, i.e. herbicides, pesticides etc.

Once this is in place in the tank it should be 0.75% filled with water from a pond, lake or slow
flowing stream. The micro-organisms in the natural pond water will form an important part of the
culture, therefore it helps if, when evaporation lowers the water content, that you refill the tank with
pond water again.

You will need to aerate the water with an air stone and pumped air, equipment which can be acquired
from most pet shops. The bubbler should be running fairly actively but not too aggressively. It is also
advisable to light the tank with a proper fish tank light as this supplies the full spectrum of ordinary
daylight. Ideally the light should be turned on and off, either manually, or with an electronic timer to
simulate summer, i.e. 16 hours on and 8 hours off. If the tank is kept in a centrally heated room the
culture, once going, should continue to cycle through generation after generation throughout the year
without trouble. If however the room is unheated you will need to heat the water with an aquarium
thermostatically controlled heater during the colder months of the year or the generation times will
become unreasonably long. At room temperatures the eggs will hatch and the larvae will pass
through 4 larval instars, pupate and then emerge as an adult in less than a month.

The chironomid larvae feed on micro-organisms which in turn feed on the organic material in the
water. In order to feed the micro-organisms you will need to add a level teaspoon of powdered
rodent feed from a pet shop to the tank occasionally depending on the size of your Chironomid
population, you will probably have to powder the rat food yourself.

As the depth of the substrate declines it can be replaced with cotton-wool, this is better that the
manmade fibres used in fish tanks because it breaks down, adding nutrients to the tank and does not
therefore need cleaning. The new cotton wool should not cover any more than 33% of the base of the
fish tank at any one time.

In the USA C. tentans can be bought from Aquatic BioSystems 1300 Blue Spruce Dr., Fort Collins,
CO (Tel 970-484-2514). People living in Canada will need an import permit in order to bring living
organisms into Canada.

Those who like to be scientifically up to date should know that the North American populations once
referred to as C. tentans have recently been described as a geographically and cytogenetically
distinct sister species, Chironomus dilutus, even though I have referred to C. tentans throughout
these notes for simplicity.

Identification (aproximate)
In temperate North America C. dilutus (C. tentans) is recognised because of its size (>18 mm) and
because its larvae have a distinct, narrow, dark stripe on the dorsal surface of the head capsule. The
larvae also have long, coiled ventral tubuli on abdominal segment 8, and very distinct, long lateral
tubuli on segment 7.

C. dilutus populations typically have a large spring emergence in mid-May to early June, and often a
smaller emergence in the fall. C. dilutus in North America often lives sympatrically with C.
pallidivittatus, C. pallidivittatus larvae are slightly smaller, with the dorsal head stripe being faint
or absent. The adults are distinctly different, C. pallidivittatus is smaller and grass-green, whereas
C. dilutus adults are closer to being yellow-brown. C. pallidivittatus will breed as easily in culture
as C. tentans so confusing the two will not be a problem

References:-

Shobanov, N.A., I.I. Kiknadze, and M.G. Butler. 1999. Palearctic and Nearctic Chironomus
(Camptochironomus) tentans (Fabricius) are different species (Diptera, Chironomidae).
Entomologica scandinavica 30:311-322.
 Cockroaches

Gromphadorhina portentosa including a female with ootheca Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Cockroaches are members of the insect order Dictyoptera, an order they share with the Preying
Mantids. Cockroaches are all in the sub-order Blattodea while the Mantids are in the suborder
Mantodea. Cockroaches suffer from a lot of bad press, they have socially what I would call a high
yuck factor in most peoples minds because many people think of cockroaches only in terms of the
pest species, if they think of them at all.

This is not really fair, there are many species of cockroach that are very beautiful and most of these
species are never seen by anybody because they are neither pests not pets. In the world there are
nearly 4,000 known species of Cockroaches, of which only 25 to 30 (or less than 1%) have any pest
status, the rest are innocent members of the earth's fauna, some of which make great pets.

To put things in perspective the pest species of cockroach are no more closely related to the pet
species than we are to spider monkeys or baboons, I hope this will help you readjust your thinking so
that you can give some of the commonly kept species an unbiased meeting in the future.

The larger species of cockroach that are normally kept as pets or as animals for food for reptiles and
large arachnids are best housed in a fish tank with a tightly fitting wooden frame mesh lid.
Cockroaches are designed to squeeze themselves into small spaces and the nymphs, which are
naturally quite small when they are first born will escape if you give them a chance.

Larger species naturally need a larger tank and the Gromphadorhina spp. look quite attractive in a
large well set up tank. There is of course the problem of the cockroaches escaping and infesting the
house, this is unlikely to occur if the tank is well made, never-the-less a sensible added precaution is
to spread a thin layer of Vaseline around the inside of the top of the tank, (Fluon, see the section on
ants, is better but harder to obtain), the Vaseline will need to be renewed periodically as it acquires a
coat of dust which renders it useless as an escape deterrent.

All the more commonly kept species are tropical or sub-tropical in origin and you will need to supply
some heating. The easiest method is to keep the cage in a centrally heated room, otherwise use a
heat-mat. As with other invertebrates the cage should be half on and half off the heat-mat so as to
supply a gradient of temperatures.

The floor of the cage should be covered with wood shavings for leaf litter species such as
Gromphadorhina portentosa or with peat for burrowing species such as Pycnoscelus surinamensis
as well as a mixture of surface objects to offer hiding spaces, (most cockroaches are nocturnal) egg
boxes and the inners from toilet and paper towel roles will do but pieces of rotted wood, a pile of
small sticks and or pine cones are much better and certainly look more attractive. All known species
of cockroach are omnivorous (this means that like you and me they eat nearly everything).

In captivity most species do well on a mixture of dried feed/grains etc. and fresh vegetables or fruit,
though a lot of people find they have success feeding them on dog food as well. I fed mine mostly on
rolled oats and fruit like bananas and apples though they especially like over-ripe peaches and plums
when I can get them. Though they don't need fresh food every day it is important that they always
have enough to eat otherwise they will start eating the cage as well as each other. It is also important
to remove fruit that is not eaten after a day or two; otherwise it will attract pests such as mites and
fruit fly as well as breeding microbes.

As a general rule breeding will take care of itself, eggs are normally laid in an ootheca (natures
answer to the polystyrene egg box) and the young can be kept with the adults. Some species will hide
these in the corners of the cage or other accessible nooks and crannies while others will carry the
ootheca around with them, either inside or partly extruded from the body until it is time for the young
to hatch.

Gromphadorhina species incubate the ootheca inside their body cavity. To do this they first extrude
it as if they were depositing it on the floor, only they never actually lose control of it, as soon as the
ootheca is fully exerted from the reproductive tract it is turned on its side and drawn back into the
body cavity. It is important not to disturb the females during this operation, which can take more than
30 minutes, as it may result in her losing the ootheca and thus the death of the young. Some species are
parthenogenetic (the females give birth to other females only, etc. etc. and no males are ever seen)
i.e. Pycnoscelus surinamensis.

The following species are recommended to the beginner, Surinam Cockroach Pycnoscelus
surinamensis Madagascan Hissing Cockroach Gromphadorhina portentosa and several other similar
species, and the Death's Head Cockroaches Blaberus craniifer and Blaberus discoidalis.
 Collembola

Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction
Collembola or Springtails are often not that well known despite their beauty and their ubiquitous
nature so here is a small introduction to them as an order.

Collembola are small to minute hexapods, they are called hexapods and not insects because they are
not actually insects, but members of taxa of animals that scientists believed insects evolved from. All
insects are hexapods (six legged) but not all hexapods are insects. Other non-insect hexapods include
the Diplura and the Protura.

Collembola are often clothed in coloured scales, their antennae have less than 6 segments and their
eyes are either simple ocelli or absent. Their legs have only four segments the last being called the
tibiotarsus, they possess no wings. They have only 6 segments on their abdomen; this is one of the
features that distinguish them from insects. On the first abdominal segment is the ventral tube, an
organ used for the absorption of moisture but from which the order derives its name. The etymology
is from the Greek kolla, = glue and embolon = a peg, in the mistaken belief that the 'peg' was used by
the animal to glue itself to smooth surfaces. On the third abdominal segment is a minute organ called
the retinaculum or hamula, this helps to hold the furca, or furcula, in place when it is held under the
abdomen. On the fourth abdominal segment is the 'furca' itself, this is a forked springing organ from
which the creature derives its common name of "springtail".

Collembola have been around at least 400 million years, the oldest known fossil Hexapod Rhyniella
praecursor is a Collembola from chert of the Lower Devonian era. Collembola are also a very
successful taxa of animals, more than 6,000 known species in the world and some people estimate
that there may be as many as 50,000. This means there are more species of Collembola than of
Mammals
One species or another of Collembola live just about everywhere, in the canopy of tropical rain
forests, on the beach, in tidal rock pools, on the surface of fresh water ponds and streams, in the
deserts of Australia and in the frozen wastes of Antarctica, in fact they reach a more Southerly
distribution than any other hexapod (84 47 S.) and some species can survive temperatures less than
-60 C.

They are however most abundant in warm damp places, and many live in the leaf litter and or the soil.
The species which live in caves or deep in the leaf litter and or the soil tend to be white, have a
reduced furca and reduced or no eyes. The species that live in more open environments are more
colourful and patterned, and are often very beautiful.

Collembola continue to moult about once a week even after they have reached sexual maturity, they
don't however grow infinitely big and I have no explanation for this obviously energetically
expensive procedure. Collembola stand around doing apparently nothing while preparing to moult
and they need to have an empty gut before moulting because, like their close relatives the insects, they
shed part of the stomach lining with their external skin when they moult. This also means females
lose any sperm they have stored from mating and have to mate again after each moult.

Collembola are generally small, and some species of Neelidae are among the smallest hexapods in
the world at just over 0.2 mm long. The largest Collembola are in the family Uchidanuridae and
individuals in some species can reach 10 mm in length. Most species live for a year or less, however
some live considerably longer and the record for long life in the laboratory is 67 months for a
specimen of Pseudosinella decipiens

Most Collembola feed on the fungi and bacteria found in rotting organic matter but many arboreal
(living in trees) and epidaphic (living on the surface of the soil) species also feed on algae. Some
species feed on other plant materials as well and in a few places, particularly in Australia,
Sminthurus viridus is a pest of lucerne crops. A few other species are carnivorous feeding on
Nematodes and other Collembola.

Many species are known to have an aggregated distribution, particularly in the soil and this may be to
do with mating, in many species males deposit a spermatophore on the substrate for a the females to
find, this is generally held at the top of a thin hair or petiole to keep it off the substrate. In some
species the males deposit these whenever they feel like it; in others they wait until finding a receptive
female and then deposit some nearby.

In some species competing males will eat each others spermatophores before setting up there own in
the same place. Other species such as Bourletiella hortensis are more conventional and go in for
courtship before the male makes a spermatophore available for the female and in Sphaeridia pumilis
the male uses his third pair of legs to transfer a drop of sperm to the females genital opening.

The eggs are deposited singly by some species and in large masses which may be contributed to by a
number of females in others. A female will lay about 90 to 150 eggs during her life, though this also
varies with species.
The eggs take about a month to hatch at 8 degrees C but are quicker at warmer temperatures,
Pogonognathellus plumbeus eggs hatch in 3-4 day at about 20 degrees C, most species will live for
about a year. The young go through between 5 and 13 moults before reaching sexual maturity and the
time between moults varies with species and temperature from as little as 3.8 days in Callyntrura
chibai at 26 C to 110 days for Gulgastrura reticulosa

Collembola can make excellent pets at school or at home, they are easy to keep and fun to watch and
learn with. There are many simple experiments which can be carried out on them which demonstrate
basic biological ideas such as population growth, and the effects of environmental variables. It is
important to remember that any experiment can be fun, and that any result is a success. In schools, if
successive years' data is kept comparisons between years can add to the interest.
.
Collembola which have a furca can jump relatively large distances, this combined with their small
size, and a coating of hydrofugic (water repellent) hairs, means that the best way to pick them up and
move them around when they are alive is with a pooter. Otherwise it is easy just to tip some from one
container to the next.

Different species of Collembola can be easy or difficult to culture; generally speaking I have found
soil and deep litter dwelling species to be easier to culture than the more colourful species which
live on and around the surface. I would recommend starting off with the easiest species of all
Folsomia candida.

Folsomia candida is very cosmopolitan species that can be found throughout Europe, Asia and North
America. I would recommend looking for it in damp composts or other places where there is plenty
of rotting vegetation. It is a pure white species with short antennae. All populations studied have
been entirely female (parthenogenetic) which means in theory you can start a population with just one
healthy individual. Adults are from 1.5 to 3 millimetres long.

Collembola are easy to rear in something like an old margarine containers, lunch boxes etc. These
should 10 to 20 millimetres of plaster of Paris/charcoal mix in the bottom. To make up the substrate
mix plaster of Paris, activated charcoal (such as you can get from a pet shop, when you buy it will be
in small pieces, it is best to crush it into a powder) and water in the ratio :- Water 16.5 parts, Plaster
of Paris 9 parts, Charcoal 1 part.

If you want to see inside cut the centre out of the lid and use the remaining edges to clip down a sheet
of cling-film or similar plastic. After you have added the plaster of Paris mixture to your container it
is advisable to tap the container a few time gently on the bench to help release any air bubbles. It is a
good idea to make several extra containers so you have some to tip the Collembola into when you
want to clean the ones they have been living in. Leave the plaster for a week before putting any
Collembola in and then let it soak up as much water as it can before you but the Collembola in.

Keep the lid on tight when you are not watching them and add a couple of drops of water after having
the lid off for a few minutes as most Collembola die from drying out very quickly, but be warned they
will also die from too much water, so keep the plaster-of-Paris damp but not swimming.
 Collembola; Entomobrya sp.
feeding on brewers yeast. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

In the wild, Folsomia candida, like the larger surface living Collembola mentioned above, will feed
mainly on fungal mycelium (that is the part of the fungus you do not normally see, what you call a
mushroom or toadstool is actually the fungi's fruit). In captivity they will thrive on dried whole live
yeast, just sprinkle in a little at a time. Folsomia candida seems to do better if it is in the dark so it
is best to keep the cultures in a cupboard.

They will also eat their own faeces quite naturally so don't worry if this happens they are actually
digesting the micro-organisms that live on the half digested food in the faeces. Some species will eat
their own exuviae (shed skins) but if they do not you will have to remove them, and any dead bodies,
from the container with a fine paint brush otherwise they will attract undesirable micro-organisms.

Folsomia candida cultures thrive at temperatures between 16C and 22C, they will survive cooler
temperature but they will also take longer to grow and so your populations will be smaller.
 Crane Flies

Tipula maxima, female note the pointed end of the abdomen, males have a rounded and slightly
thickened end to the abdomen. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Crane Flies are true flies and members of the insect order Diptera, and the family Tipulidae. Crane
Flies are easily recognised insects, often known as Daddy-Long-Legs in Europe and Australia but are
sometimes called Mosquito Hawks in USA (where they are often erroneously believed to feed on
mosquitoes).

They are a diverse group of flies characterised by their long legs, thin bodies and long thin wings, a
bit like very large mosquitoes except that the adults are flower feeders and not blood suckers. Larval
crane flies are commonly called 'leather jackets' and live in the soil where they feed on plant material
particularly grass roots which tends to make them unpopular with gardeners. They will mate readily
in captivity and breeding is not all that difficult, the large size of some species combined with their
mild manner makes them excellent food items for a number of animals.

Although Crane flies are kept in a number of research laboratories they are not, as far as I know,
available commercially. This means that to start your culture you will have to catch a female during
the flying season. Females have fatter abdomens with more pointed ends and are often slightly
larger. In the UK they are quite common members of the countryside in Spring and Autumn.

Once you have caught several females of a largish species (Tipula oleracea and Tipula paludosa are
two species that are regularly raised successfully) you will need to house them in a jam jars with a
moist filter paper covering the bottom, or a small amount of water, keeping the humidity high is
essential as the eggs collapse from desiccation within a few minutes in dry environments. The jar
should also have 1 or 2 sticks to give the females something to rest on.
Unfortunately, females kept like this may take several days, even more than a week to lay all their
eggs and you will have to maintain the humidity throughout this time. T. paludosa will normally start
laying immediately after mating while T. oleracea females tend to wait a few days before starting to
lay. If you do not wish to bother incubating the eggs separately you can have some compost in the
base of the jar and the eggs will hatch in this if the humidity is kept up, but not too wet. Make sure the
compost you use is free from pesticides and herbicides etc.

This is not a problem for most people, but for scientists wanting to start a batch of larvae quickly the
common practice is to artificially stimulate oviposition (egg laying). This is done by setting up a
petri dish with water and a filter paper, the female, who has her head, legs and wings removed, is
then floated on the water, she will normally lay all her eggs in a few hours.

This is not quite as cruel as it seems because as far as scientists have been able to determine insects
have no ability to experience pain, and the female will die once she has laid all her eggs anyway.
Once the female has finished laying the water is drawn off and the eggs remain on the moist filter
paper ready for incubation.

The incubation container should have both high humidity and some ventilation; petri dishes with a
hole in the lid covered with fine gauze make an excellent choice. The eggs will take between 6 and
10 days to hatch and the larvae can then be moved to rearing containers using a fine damp paintbrush.

You can rear the larvae in a wide variety of containers, on either sterile compost (as above) or on
coarse sand, in either case the substrate needs to be kept damp, but not soaking, 20 ml of water to 75
grams of previously dry sand is a good ratio.

Tipulids are naturally herbivorous and do best if fed on dried and ground-up or powdered grass, this
may be available commercially in some places as Green Meal or Grass Meal. If not you will have to
prepare your own. The best method of drying the grass is freeze drying, however most people will
not have this facility available. It is most likely that the larvae will do well on powdered gerbil or
other rodent food, though I do not know of anybody who has actually tried this.

The larvae are not terrible quick growing and will take 4 or 5 months to emerge. During this time
they should be cleaned out every 3 or 4 weeks and fresh substrate supplied. During the last month
the largest larvae will start to pupate and pupae should be removed from the culture daily and stored
separately in order to stop them being cannibalised by the remaining larvae. Freshly emerged males
and females should be housed together to allow them to mate if a new generation is desired. Males
will emerge before females; however in most cultures there will be enough overlap to allow for
continuous breeding.

Roger Laughlin, (1958) The Rearing of Crane Flies (Tipulidae). Ent. exp. & appl. 1 pp 241-
245.

Nuri M. Barbash, (1990) Improving Techniques of Rearing Tipula paludosa MG. (Dipt.,
Tipulidae) in the Laboratory. Entomologists Monthly Magazine, Vol 126 pp119.
 Crickets

Introduction

Crickets are members of the insect order Orthoptera and as such they have a hemimetabolous life
cycle. This means that what hatches out of the egg looks quite like the adult minus wings and that they
do not have a pupal stage in their development.

Crickets have been kept in captivity for thousands of years because the singing of the adult males is
considered pleasant by many people. More recently they have been kept by many people as a live
food source for a great variety of carnivorous animals.

However they can be kept purely for the joy of watching them as they are attractive and active little
animals with a real charm of their own. Crickets are never really still for long, though they do not
have the macho attraction of the Arachnids, or the handleability of the large Roaches and Stick-insects
they are the most enjoyable to watch because they are busy active animals always up to something.

They are often amusing as well as educational and they are among my favourite invertebrates. The
male of the Field Cricket (Gryllus campestris) has at least three different songs 1) a song to attract
the female, 2) a song to woo the female after she has been attracted, and 3) a competitive song to sing
at other males.

There are many species of crickets in the world and this care sheet is solely concerned with the forms
of the two species most often sold as food items in pet shops, Acheta domesticus and Gryllus
campestris and Gryllus bimaculatus. All three of these species breed readily in captivity and a
make a wonderful addition to any home with their singing. Gryllus spp. crickets are larger and easier
to catch than Acheta species.

A glass aquarium with a tight fitting wood framed mesh lid makes a good cage; it should be 30cm by
20cm by 20cm at least. The size really depends on how many crickets you wish to raise. The cage
needs to have a light over it, a fish tank light designed for that size of tank is ideal, though you do not
need to use the more expensive biotubes, ordinary fluorescent tubes will be fine. Without overhead
lighting there is little chance of maintaining the colony. Most species of cricket seem happy with a
regime of 16 hours of daylight to 8 hours of night including the primarily nocturnal Acheta domesticus
.

Though they can be kept at house temperature, in colder climes they will be more active and sing
better if given some warmth, although the light will supply some heat, a heat pad is useful, with the
cage placed half on and half off the pad. A temperature of around 30 degrees C will be successful for
most species.

Most species need some sort of cover to hide in, egg cartons, the cardboard inners from toilet rolls
and inverted polystyrene cups all make suitable hideaways, however making a small wood pile of dry
and rotting branches 3 cm to 6 cm diameter by about 15 cm long in one end of the tank works equally
well if not better, and looks far more attractive. In the base of the tank should be 5 cm to 10 cm of a
peat substitute compost, this should be dampened occasionally. Remember the substrate will dry out
from the bottom up where the heat pad is under the tank.

Water should be made available in a shallow bowl filled with cotton wool, oasis or sand. The water
bowl should be placed buried in the substrate so only a few millimetres rise above the level of the
substrate. It does no harm to over fill it so that the soil around it stays damper than the rest of the
cage.

All crickets are omnivorous and in the wild some species are carnivorous by choice, if crickets are
not kept well fed they will prey on one another. Most things can be used as food, I have found that a
combination of rolled oats and bran flakes with fresh fruit and vegetables will suffice to keep them
happy. Most dry dog and rabbit foods will do as well and they also like green peanuts such as those
you would by for a bird feeder

The females will lay their eggs in the damp soil around the water bowl, or in the water bowl if the
soil gets too dry. The eggs should hatch in a week or two, depending on the temperature. The young
and the adults can be kept together providing they have plenty of food.

I am often asked about singing and temperature so I have included the information here. In 1992 a
guy called R.B. Toms found that in some Crickets the frequency of the chirp is directly related to the
temperature such that you can actually tell the temperature by counting the number of chirps and
knowing the species that is singing, i.e. for Oecanthus karschi temperature in degrees C = the number
of chirps in 6 seconds + 12, and for Oecanthus capensis temperature in degrees C = number of chirps
in 6 seconds divided by 2 and then + 11. However I have not found any records for the species
commonly kept in captivity, so here is a good research project for a classroom.
 Drosophila

Drosophila melanogaster Male New bottle culture of fruitflies.

Photo copyright :- Marek W. Kozlowski Photo copyright :- G. Ramel

Introduction

Drosophila, more commonly known as fruit flies, are wonderful animals. Not only will they live and
breed in a milk bottle, or a half-pint milk bottle if you can get one, almost indefinitely, but they are
very useful for feeding young carnivores of all sorts and they have an interesting courtship which can
be observed in schools.

Fruit Flies, are flies and as such they have a holometabolous life-cycle. This means that the larva that
hatches from the egg looks nothing like an adult fly at all. Rather it is a maggot, a highly evolved
eating machine on a par with a caterpillar. After it has passed through 3 instars this larvae pupates.
Within the pupae it undergoes a complete metamorphosis during which most of its body is turned into
soup before it is remade into an adult fly.

At room temperature most Drosophila, certainly those species commonly kept in laboratories, and
sold at insect and arachnid fairs, will go through an entire life cycle, from adult laying eggs to adult
again in two weeks.

You can buy laboratory fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster from a number of biological suppliers,
and even in some pet shops these days. They are generally not expensive and you are assured of
having a species that has lived its last 1,000 generations or more inside a glass vial.

If you do not wish to buy flies you can catch your own during the warmer months. To do this you can
either set out some slightly rotting fruit, near some compost is ideal, and then by being careful and
patient catch the flies with a pooter when they come to visit, or catch them with a net.

If you catch them with an insect net you can best get them under your control by sealing the net near
the wire with one hand while you reach into the net with the other hand with a small glass or insect
sample vial. Once you have some insects in the vial place your thumb over the top to prevent escape
and withdraw your hand from the net. Now you can seal the vial properly with a stopper.
If there are more flies in the net you can collect them with another vial. Providing you have given
yourself plenty of time, so that you are starting your culture long before you need it, 10 to 12 flies will
give you a fair chance of having caught some flies of the same species and opposite sex. Of course
you can catch more if you like.

Alternatively you can simply load up your fly bottles with food, make sure your cotton wool vials are
a good fit, air can get in but flies cannot get out, then after removing the stoppers and keeping them
some place safe put your vials out near the compost or the dump for 24 hours or so. Do not put them
too close together or you will disturb the others when you sneak up on the first. Next day you want to
take your cotton wool stoppers and sneaking up on your vials do your best to trap some flies inside
the vials with the stopper. The flies will fly up as soon as they become aware of you; they detect
motion well so moving slowly is a good idea.

Once you have acquired your flies, however you went about it, you can raise them in any sort of
container you like, however one that is wider at the bottom that it is at the top will give best results.
The old fashioned 1/3 of a pint milk bottles are perfect and are still used for exactly this purpose in
many professional laboratories. The best way to seal the top of the jar or vial is with a wad of cotton
wool. If therefore you have to use jars that once held food or some other commodity use ones that are
no more than 3 cm wide at the top, if they are also about 10 cm deep they will be ideal.

The Drosophila larvae do not feed on the fruit that their parents show such an interest in, but on the
fungi that live within the fruit and which are the unseen cause of the rot. You can feed your larvae on
any rotting fruit, however this tends to be a bit messy, smelly and inefficient.
Outside of custom made laboratory diets the best foods for fruit flies are based on banana. You can
either mix dried banana flakes with a little water to make a porridgey mush, or squish up some banana
with a little water. In either case I like to add some powdered milk or condensed milk to the mixture.
Finally you need to add about 10 pellets of dried brewers yeast. This mixture will keep your fruit
flies happily producing generation after generation.

It is a good idea to have several cultures running and to have a few spare culture vials so that living
flies can be transferred to new cultures when the food in the old one has been used up. A pooter is
useful for collecting the flies. The adults have a tendency to fly when disturbed so if you are planning
on tipping some flies out into a container of some sort, either for experiments of for feeding to
something it is wiser to invert the vial before removing the stopper.

With tarantulas, and mantids, as well as other carnivores, I generally just tip a few flies into the
predators cage then quickly put the lid back on. I inevitably lose flies this way and so I always have
1 or 2 fly papers hanging around where I keep the fruit fly cultures. This is especially important if
you are also breeding fruit eating invertebrates as the flies will find the smallest piece of uneaten fruit
and lay eggs in it. You will then have an unwanted fruit fly colony in your cockroach, beetle or
millipede cage.

To watch the mating activities place some flies in a Petri-dish with a damp piece of paper towelling
covering the bottom and a small piece of banana in one quadrant of the dish.

It is possible in some places to acquire cultures of flightless fruit flies, this obviously makes handling
a lot easier, and if you are buying stock then it is worth looking around to see if you can get this form.
 Earthworms

Common Mediterranean earthworms on the authors hand - Photo copyright :- Theodoros Naziridis

Introduction.

Earthworms are members of the Phylum Annelida, Class Oligochaeta, they are familiar and harmless
animals, much neglected in schools. They are commonly called Night Crawlers or Rain Worms in the
USA. There are 3,100 known species but only a few of these have ever been kept in captivity. There
is a large commercial interest in a few species of earthworms in the USA at the moment, and this is
catered to by a considerable body of literature and websites such as http://www.wormwoman.com/
and http://www.wormman.com/ and I will not be supplying information concerning that aspect of
worm culture here.

Earthworms are fascinating animals. They have been around for over 120 million years and do an
immense amount of work in the world, Charles Darwin estimated, that in a English field (before the
days of herbicides and pesticides), earthworms shifted between 8 and 10 tons of soil per acre.
Bringing nutrients from up to a metre or more below the surface and making them available for plants
as well as helping in the breakdown and redistribution of dead leaves. In temperate climes at least, it
is quite reasonable to assume that the molecules that make up the food you eat every day, and
therefore the molecules that your body is built up of, have nearly all passed through the guts of an
earthworm, at least once and probably many times before they got to you.

Earthworms do not need to be kept in large bins in the backyard, Charles Darwin studied earthworms
in flower pots, with slates placed over them as lids, in his house. It is quite a simple matter to create
displays that will facilitate a greater understanding of, and interest in, earthworms.

All you really need is a tall glass jar, or several tall glass jars. A sweet jar, or any other glass
container 30 cm more in height will do excellently but spaghetti jars without any decoration ar best.
Next you need to acquire some worms and some different sorts of soil, these soils should be different
colours as well as different textures if at all possible, a clayey soil, a sandy soil and a dark loam
would be an excellent mixture, though feel free to use 4 or 5 layers if you please. Leave about 7 or 8
cm of space at the top.

The soils should be added to the jar such that they make set of layers, if you have more than one jar
arrange the soils in different orders. At the top of the soil column you should but some, about 1 cm
worth, of half rotted leaves, apple or maple are good oak is not so good. Now all you need to do is
add some worms. Worms are easily available in most of the USA and Europe and if you cannot find
any in your back garden talk to your local gardeners, someone will be able to supply you with a few.
If you have more than one species available using similar set ups to compare species can be
educational.

Another way to arrange a display is to have two sheets of glass separated by a wooden frame, 5 or 10
millimetre apart. Soil can be arranged in this in either vertical columns or horizontal rows and
earthworms released into it in the same way as in the other container. In either case it is educational
to watch the way the worms disturb the layers, mixing the soil. This way they keep our gardens
healthy.

Earthworms are hermaphroditic, meaning they are both male and female at the same time. The sexual
organs and the ducts that lead to and from them are situated in the anterior (front) part of the animal,
normally between segments 7 and 15. Copulation occurs on warm damp nights. The worms lie head
to tail and side by side and both secrete a mucous ring around the two of them, then after the transfer
of sperm and the laying of the eggs in the mucous tube they back out of these tubes which then become
the cocoons for the eggs. Fertilisation occurs inside the cocoons. The cocoons are left under the
ground, and often change shape, becoming darker, smaller and harder.
 Fresh-water Flatworms
Introduction

Flatworms are a rather interesting group of organisms that are among the first invertebrates I ever
kept in captivity. Though they can be part of a fresh-water aquarium they can also be kept on their
own in shallow bowls of pond water. They are members of the phylum Platyhelminthes, class
Turbellaria, order Tricladida. There are terrestrial as well aquatic triclads though I have never kept
these.

The fresh-water forms normally have distinct shape at the head end and are seldom more than 2 cm
long. The genus Dugesia has several species in both USA and Europe. Dugesia species are normally
brown, but other species can be a variety of colours, white, brown or black and can have patterns of
dots. They can have two central large eyes or many smaller eyes which are not really visible to the
naked eye.

They occur in most ponds and streams and are most easily found by looking under stones and the
leaves of aquatic plants. They should be lifted up with a fine paintbrush placed in to a jar of water to
carry home. You should also collect some stones, plant leaves and enough mud and debris from the
pond to cover the base of the container you will keep them in to a depth of 1 cm at least.

I kept them in open topped large margarine containers and circular pat dishes with a stone bubbler
from an air pump, this is important for species from streams which often have higher oxygen
requirements than pond species. Flatworms are carnivores feeding on very small insects, worms and
molluscs, which they suck up through an evertable pharynx.

If the prey items are too large to be consumed whole then Dugesia will exude some digestive
enzymes to break up the tissues of the prey and suck up the resulting mess. They spend much of their
time gliding around the container using ciliate action which is effectively rowing with very many tiny
oars.

They will glide around the edges of the container and across the surface of the water, or perhaps the
surface of the air, they are actually below the meniscus gliding on it upside down, which is fun to
watch. They can be fed on small pieces of meat, if these are tied with cotton first and the other end of
the cotton runs outside of the container they can be removed from the water with little disturbance.

Flatworms have an amazing ability to recover from injury, however, despite the fact that they have no
pain receptors I would not personally recommend damaging them deliberately in order to see them
heal again, in my opinion there is something a little psychologically unhealthy in deliberately
damaging other living creatures for little more than amusement.

Triclad Flatworms are hermaphroditic, meaning they are both male and female, so that when they are
mating they both transfer sperm to the other partner. Several eggs will be laid together in an egg
capsule which is normally attached by a short stalk to the underside of a rock or to a plant. There is
nothing you can do to help so just watch nature take its course.
 Fresh-water Insects

Calyopteryx virgo Beautiful Demoiselle.

Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction.

Many species of insects spend some of their lives living in water; some spend only the larval stages
of their life beneath the waters, while others live there for generation upon generation. Maintaining a
fresh-water aquarium, without fish, is really a lot of fun and can also be very educational.

While it is eminently possible to raise monocultures of various species or groups, and this may be
important for study purposes, it is often far more satisfying to raise a mixed tank. The basics are the
same.

As a general rule, if you are raising for study or educational purposes, carnivores are best raised
individually in small jars, while herbivorous species can easily be raised together. It is best to use to
species that occur locally so that you do not have any problems with releasing excess adults or
young. Pond, lake and or slow stream species are easier to rear in captivity than species from faster
flowing streams. The faster the stream the higher the oxygen requirements of the animals living it are
likely to be.

Secondly species accustomed to dealing with flowing water do not do so well in the still environment
of a fish tank, where they become more vulnerable to algal, bacterial and fungal pathogens which they
do not normally encounter. Some degree of water movement can be introduced into a fish tank by use
of pumps which circulate the water, as well as filter it.

Dont over populate the tank, if you wish to keep more species, use several tanks, single species
cultures can obviously be kept in smaller tanks.

You will need a fish tank and a light with a biotube to facilitate plant growth. Plant growth is
essential; it helps purify the water, supplies habitat space, supplies food for some species and looks
attractive. The larger the tank the better. The water in the fish tank needs to have a bacterial flora to
some extent. If you are taking species from a pond or lake, take the water from there as well
whenever you replenish the tank.

If you are raising semi-aquatic species, such as Odonata (Dragonflies), Ephemeroptera (Mayflies) or
Trichoptera (Caddisflies) you will need to make arrangements for the adults to emerge, and, in the
case of Trichoptera, for them to pupate. For Odonata and Ephemeroptera you will need space above
the fish tank, enclosed in Perspex or mesh with vegetation, alive or dead, rising up out of the water.
For Trichoptera there will need be an area, accessible from the tank, but above the water level, with
damp sand and moss. This requirement of Trichoptera is one reason most people who rear them do
so in small shallow tanks, generally individually.

I recommend 5 cm to 10 cm of a gravel substrate for general tanks, with a mixed grain size. This can
be achieved by mixing sand and aquarium gravel. An under gravel filtering system is better than
boxes with filtrate materials. I also do not recommend regular cleaning of the gravel as this destroys
any balance the tank has achieved. I have kept a 90 cm fish tank healthy for years without ever
changing the water or cleaning the gravel. This is achieved by having a good depth of substrate, and a
lot of vegetation and not too many organisms, the tank then develops its own balance of micro-
organisms. Maintenance involves feeding, cleaning algae of the glass (so I can watch the occupants),
and cropping the excess vegetation growth.

In general tanks it is advisable to set up the tank with the plants and let it settle for a week or even a
few months, then add some animals. As a rule I have been more interested in raising a habitat than
any particular species so I have populated the tank collecting a net full of creatures from one or more
ponds or lakes and releasing them all together in the tank. Naturally predation occurs, however the
tank will develop a balance as I said above, which you can later adjust by adding or removing
individual species.

A healthy tank has far more going on in it than you can see at a casual glance. There should be a
profusion of smaller organisms, and many species will be cryptic, you will find that some species do
better in the aquarium than others. In the UK Isopod detritivores (feeding on dead plant material) such
as Asellus aquaticus and Gammerus pulex, the Platyhelminths Polycelis nigra, P. tenuis and Dugesia
lugubris are normally strong survivors, as are various snails.
Most Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) are herbivores, or detritivores and you can keep a range of species
easily in a tank. Stoneflies (Plecoptera) are generally more common in faster flowing water and are
more difficult to raise, they tend to like colder water as well. Caddisflies (Trichoptera) have a range
of diets and you will have to learn which species are algal feeders, or detritivores and thus suitable
to your tank and which species are carnivores.

Damselfly and Dragonfly (Odonata) larvae are all carnivores so you will need to keep only a few in a
tank, and even then you may need to top up the species they prey on. If you are primarily interested in
raising Odonata, and it is well worth the effort, watching the adults emerge from the last instar larval
skin is an amazing experience; it may be worth maintaining a culture of prey species separately.

Many species of Odonata emerge late in the day, at night or early in the morning in order to avoid
predators so dont be too surprised if you miss their emergence. You can raise a number of Odonata
larvae together providing you are willing to supply them with a constant supply of fresh food. In
colder temperate environments some Odonata can spend several years in the larval stages.

Diving beetles look impressive in a tank, however they are voracious carnivores and will not help
you maintain a long term environment. Providing the water is fairly healthy, that there is a good
supply of vegetation and sufficient food, diving beetles are not that difficult to keep.

There are numerous heteropterans who live permanently in the water, most are carnivorous and so
again you will need to keep supplying food items. Many of them are quite interesting to study
however and not difficult to rear in a suitable tank.
The best advice I can give here is to learn about your local fauna and to experiment.
 Harvestmen

Graecophalangium atticum
male Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Harvestmen are arachnids of the order Opiliones, this means they are related to spiders, but that they
are not spiders. The main differences are that they have only one body section and no poison. It is
worth emphasising the no poison bit here, I receive countless emails from people asking me if it is
true that Harvestmen, or Daddy Longlegs are the most poisonous spiders in the world. I do not know
how this piece cultural fantasy came into being, it is however the opposite of the truth, Harvestmen,
as I said above are neither spiders nor poisonous in the least.

They are relatively easy to keep in captivity as the cannibalism that afflicts other arachnids is not
present except in the case of injured individuals. They are carnivorous preying on invertebrates
smaller than themselves and scavenging dead bodies. They can easily be fed on crickets that have
been killed by freezing. If these are not available then some beef will suffice.

They occur all around the world and it is fun to catch some of your local inhabitants and get to know
them. Recently some large specimens, with bodies greater than 1 cm long, have become popular
among invertebrate enthusiasts and they can sometimes be bought as Giant Harvestmen at
invertebrate shows and in pet shops.

The ideal cage is one based on a fish tank but with a wooden frame fitted that supports an aerial
section covered in mesh or fly screen that is at least as high above the top of the fish tank as the tank
is tall. This sort of addition to a fish tank is not difficult to make with a little carpentry know-how
and I have found them useful for a wide range of organisms. The beauty of this sort of cage is that you
can have a damp and humid base, covered with leaf litter with a dryer area above. If 1 or 2 of the
cups that plant nurseries sell to sit under plant pots, of a small size are attached to the wooden frame
the food can be added to these thus keeping it out of the litter below and allowing you to remove
items that are no longer edible.

If there is an inch or two of soil in the base of the tank, and if this is kept moist no particular method
is required to supply moisture. Adding some dead shrubbery, or a pot plant to the cage will increase
both its attractiveness and its semblance to a natural habitat. If a growing pot plant is kept in the cage
then some lighting may be necessary in order to allow it grow successfully. If some Collembola are
added to the cage this will give the young Harvestmen something to feed on besides the dead crickets
and help contain mould.

The eggs will be laid on the damp substrate individually and the development time is dependent on
temperature and species. The only problem generally encountered when breeding Harvestmen is
their requirement to experience a variable humidity during their moult, this occurs naturally in the
wild, and it is the reason that, though adults can be kept successfully in a lunch box, a more elaborate
cage is required for breeding purposes. To this end it is also useful to place the cage outside, or near
an open window during the day if possible.

Harvestmen are wonderful and harmless denizens of this world which, although they have long legs
that inevitably can be damaged, are reasonably robust and can be allowed to run over the hands of
children without danger.

Experiments on substrate, humidity and food preference are easy to set up. Adults will trap and feed
on woodlice, however if these are maintained in the same culture there is a danger that they will
consume the Harvestmens eggs.
 Houseflies

Musca domestica Male -

Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

The most easily available flies in most peoples lives are house flies, and for those breeding smaller
spiders and mantids they are an excellent food source. Flies are members of the insect order Diptera,
meaning two wings, which distinguishes them from the other flying insects which have four wings.
They have a holometabolous life cycle.

They can easily be bred in captivity however the fly larvae, normally called maggots, are expert
escape artists and you will need a good tight screw on lid. There are actually 3 or 4 species of flies
that most people call house flies, some of which are more prevalent in houses at different times of
year than at others.

The easiest way to breed Houseflies is in a an old sweet jar, or plastic food jar, 20 cm tall by 10 cm
wide is fine, you will need air holes in the lid. I simply pour in some dried pet food and some water,
enough water so that the pellets are all wet through and fully expanded, but that there is no free water
in the container.

It takes a day or two of adjustments to get it just right. A piece of paper towelling coated thinly with
yoghurt is added, then I catch some (about 10) flies from around a local garbage pile and add them, I
can produce several hundred flies per pot this way. If the number of larvae is too great the substrate
looses all its consistency and the larvae climb up the walls of the pot. The simple answer is to divide
the larvae between 2 or 3 new cultures.

As the larvae near the end of their feeding stage I add a crumpled plastic bag to the culture and the
larvae pupate in this, once they are all pupated they can be removed. Storing some in the bottom of
the fridge will slow down their development allowing you to stagger the emergence time, of course
this can also be achieved by starting a number of cultures at weekly or 5 day intervals. Storing the
pupa in a number of small containers will make it easy to add just a few flies to each predator. I have
had difficulty getting a second generation with this method and have found it easier to catch new
gravid flies from around the garbage.

The following diet is one that is used in a professional entomology lab where it serves well for
continual breeding.

170 g bran pellets, 30 g milk powder, 20 g dried yeast extract.

The bran pellets are soaked well and then the whole lot is mixed up, put in a pint pot, with a piece of
tissue soaked in milk (old milk is better) placed on the top (to encourage egg laying). The alternative
diet is just plain bran pellets well soaked.
The maggots will develop to the pupal stage in the pot. The amount of water is quite important, so you
may have to experiment with that to get the right consistency. The population density of larvae is also
important - too few and the larvae don't develop, too many and they become overcrowded, resulting
in small adults, but see above.
A layer of sawdust is then added - this is to give the final larval stage something to pupate in. Eggs
are collected on a piece of tissue paper soaked in milk and transferred to a new pint pot full of
soaked pellets.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr Lara Senior, Product Testing Manager of Insect Investigations Ltd, Cardiff,
Wales CF3 2PX, UK for permission to reproduce the diet she uses here and for her advice on this
chapter.
 Hoverflies

Syrphus ribesii from Europe. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Hoverflies are members of the order Diptera and as such are true flies, or two winged flies. They are
all members of the family Syrphidae and they are called Flower flies in the USA. The hoverflies are
a large group of flies containing several thousand species, some species have culture requirements
that make them relatively difficult to rear in captivity however two groups are relatively easy to rear.

They are common throughout Spring and Summer wherever there are flowers, the males can often be
caught hovering above flowers or patches of habitat, waiting for the opportunity to mate with a female
that comes to use these resources, hence their common names. They are a relatively well studied
group of flies, and for Europe at least there are good keys for many groups (see below). Many
species of hoverflies are bee or wasp mimics, however, despite their appearance they are all
harmless and fun to catch and use as teaching aids in school, for this purpose breeding in culture is
not necessary.

One species of Hoverfly which occurs in both Europe and North America and which is easy to
breed, though it may be of more interest to those looking for food for larger animals than for schools
because of its habits is Eristalis tenax. This impressive fly is called a Drone-fly in England because
it looks like a drone (male) Honey Bee. The larvae are called rat-tailed maggots because they have
an extensible tube at the hind end of their abdomen through which they breath, this adaptation allows
them to breed in water that is so polluted it has little or no oxygen it. They will reach a length of
about 2.5 cm (or 1 inch) before pupating.

The simplest way to obtain good numbers of Hoverfly larvae (for those who wish to use them as food
for pets) is to take a bucket or small plastic bath and put 2 or 3 cow pats, or shovels full of other
animal dung in it and then fill it 75% with water, leave this under a tree, or in some other shaded spot
outside. If you have Eristalis tenax, or other similar Hoverflies in your area they will find this and
the females will lay eggs for you. These will soon hatch into small larvae which will feed on the
micro-organisms in the water. The larvae will be at their largest in about a month. If you wish to
collect the pupae stand the container in a larger one which has about 3 to 5 cm of friable soil, or coir
in the base and add something that will allow the maggots to climb out, a piece of board will suffice.

For more controlled rearing, either for permanent cultures, or for school use, the following method
can be used. It is important to realise that because the fly larvae feed on the micro-organisms in the
culture medium there is no way these can be sterile. Care must be taken to avoid the water from these
cultures being licked off grubby little fingers or from entering cuts. For this reason it may be best to
restrict childrens access to the cultures, or at least to make them wear disposable protective gloves.

Adult flies should be kept in a mating and oviposition cage about 50x40x40 cm, this should have
mesh sides and be placed near a window as light is important in stimulating oviposition (egg laying).
The adults should be supplied with honey, smeared on the mesh, or on a plate in a pad of cotton
wool. They should also be supplied with fresh flowers, ideally these should be wild flowers of a
kind Eristalis hoverflies have been observed visiting. The flowers supply pollen, which is necessary
for the female to mature her eggs.

The cage should also contain a small plastic container such as a margarine container or cut down 2
litre ice-cream tub. This tub needs to hold a soup of rotting vegetation and water, an ideal medium is
fresh rabbit droppings mixed in water, about 2 parts droppings to 5 parts water. This should stand for
a day or two so that the sediment settles and there is some clear water lying over a layer of
vegetation. A piece of mesh or cloth draped partly over the container and into the water will assist
the flies in gaining access to lay their eggs.

Female Eristalis sp. will lay between 100 and 200 eggs in good conditions. The larvae need to be
raised in the medium described above. As they grow, it is best to divide them out into more than one
container as over-crowding slows down the development time.

Adding some yeast to the mixture will help the larvae to grow to full size. At 20 degrees C larval
development will take about two weeks. The fully grown larvae will need to pupate if you wish to
see or use the adult flies. To pupate they will need to leave the container, this is easiest for them if
there is a ramp of wood, or some similar material leading out of one side of the container. If the
container is placed in a larger container which has about 3 to 5 cm of friable soil, or coir, in the
bottom of it the larvae will pupate in this substrate. Once the prepupal larva has entered the pupal
stage it will take about one week before they are ready to emerge as adult flies.

The following species have been bred in this, or a similar manner, Eristalis tenax, E. intricarius, E
arbustorum, E. abusivus, E. nemorum, Helophilus pendulus and Myathropa florea.

Adult hoverflies make good food items for many spiders and medium to larger Mantids, especially if
they are allowed to feed up for a few days before being used as food, as in most of the Diptera,
gravid females supply more nutrition than males. The larvae are useful as food for Birds,
Amphibians and Reptiles as well as carnivorous invertebrates. However Hoverflies are wonderful
creatures to study, and as they are useful members of the habitat being an important part of the
pollination fauna of many flowers there is no problem in releasing adults if they have been bred from
locally caught stock.

Hoverflies with aphidophagous (aphid eating) larvae can also be bred relatively easily, providing
you have a constant supply of aphids, larvae can be raised on cut plants infested with aphids, potted
plants infested with aphids, or kept in a petri dish with a slightly moistened filter paper and fed loose
aphids, one hoverfly larvae will need several hundred aphids to reach maturity. The gravid females
of most species of aphidophagous Hoverflies will only lay one or two eggs per plant stem. Raising
large numbers of aphidophagous Hoverflies is far more time and effort consuming than raising large
numbers of filter feeders (as above), however raising small numbers for study, or in schools can still
be very rewarding.

References

Ottenheim, M.M. and Holloway, G.J. (1995). The effect of diet and light on larval and pupal
development of laboratory-reared Eristalis arbustorum (Diptera:
Syrphidae). Netherlands Journal of Zoology, Vol 45 (3-4) pp305-314.

Stubbs, A. E. and Falk, S.J. (1993), British Hoverflies, British Entomological and Natural
History Society, Hurst, Reading, England. ISBN = 0-9502891-9-1
 Hermit Crabs (Terrestrial)
Introduction

Hermit Crabs are of course not insects, but they are arthropods, members of the class Crustacea the
same as woodlice. They have been available on the market for about 20 years in the USA and are
rapidly becoming more popular in Europe. This market is unfortunately supplied entirely by wild
caught animals as Hermit Crabs, even the terrestrial ones, have planktonic larvae which need a time
of development in the sea.

This makes breeding them extremely difficult, firstly special facilities have to be supplied to collect
the eggs and the larvae have to be kept in a marine fish tank with an abundant supply of other smaller
marine plankton for it to feed on until it develops into the adult form and leaves the sea. I know of no
one who actually breeds terrestrial Hermit Crabs and this care sheet deals only with maintaining the
lives of the adults.

The best way to keep terrestrial hermit crabs is in an aquarium with a sand and gravel substrate.
Water of some sort is required and can best be supplied in a container with a gently sloping base so
that the crab can easily access the water. This water should be kept clean, something which will
require its being regularly replaced. It is better if the water is saltwater though they will survive with
freshwater. Marine water should be made from salt bought from a pet shop specifically for this
purpose, and to the specifications of water made up for a marine aquarium which should be indicated
on the packet. If you have a large aquarium an artificial beach can be constructed and the crab will
like to forage along this beach.

Terrestrial Hermit Crabs are all tropical or subtropical and if you are keeping them in a cold or
temperate environment they will need some heating. This is best as air heating, either a centrally
heated room or red light bulb. Hot rocks and heat-mats will do but are not so good. Your crab will
like some driftwood to climb on and, as with all pets, observing your crabs usage of its habitat and
some experimentation in furnishings will allow you to create a habitat that is both pleasant to view
and healthy for the crab to live in.

Hermit Crabs are omnivorous meaning they will eat anything. They will do well on dried or moist
dog food with some additional fruits like apple and/or veg such as carrot. Hermit Crabs are messy
eaters and do not need large amounts of food so it is best to offer them small aliquots of food on a
regular basis, removing old and spoiled food before it can breed too many micro-organisms.

Unlike many of the animals discussed here, hermit crabs are relatively large and active animals that
do not naturally live in a confined space. I have too often seen them kept in cramped and unpleasantly
plastic decorated cages. This is good for neither animal nor the soul of the person keeping them.
Personally I would suggest that unless you can afford a reasonably large tank (at least) 60cm in length
and good equipment, leave them alone. They are the only invertebrates that I know of which are
available on the market that have absolutely no chance of fulfilling their natural lives in captivity and
it might be healthier for humanity if we stopped keeping them as pets altogether. Much better to
watch them in wonder in their natural habitats.
 Ladybird Beetles

Coccinella 7-punctata. 7-spot

Ladybird Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Ladybird Beetles, or Ladybeetles, or Ladybugs are popular, colourful members of the insect order
Coleoptera, family Coccinellidae. They are easy to culture in schools and are readily available from
a number of biological supply companies, though in many places they are also easy to collect in the
wild as eggs, larvae or adults.

As an experience, ladybirds can be fun to rear, and in the classroom they are much loved by children,
for more information on the biology of ladybirds in general see my web site at
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/coccinel.html

Ladybirds are most conveniently raised in Petri dishes or in a relatively flat lunch box; a piece of
paper towelling or filter paper slightly dampened on the bottom will help. Providing you keep the
container/s cleaned regularly, there is no reason why you cannot raise many generations of Ladybird
Beetles in these simple containers. Food should be made available to the eggs before they start
hatching, in this way you can be sure that the hatching larvae will not cannibalise other eggs.

Ladybird eggs are usually yellow when they are laid, however about 12 to 24 hours before hatching
when they turn grey. They will hatch in 5 or 6 days from laying at normal room temperature. The
young ladybird larvae will go through 4 instars in about 3 to 4 weeks depending on the temperature
and the constancy of the food supply, they will then pupate. The new ladybirds will start to emerge
from the pupae 1 to 2 weeks after pupation.

Lady Beetle larvae are totally carnivorous and will happily eat each other. Individuals are
particularly vulnerable while they are moulting especially if there is not enough alternative food. So
it is best to keep them only a few to a Petri dish. Though with care they can be raised in greater
numbers, this is not normally needed in schools.

Ladybirds eat aphids, in some cases specific species of aphids, in general it is sensible to feed the
beetles on species of aphids that occur on the plants you collected them from. To this end it is a good
idea to collect the beetles from a plant that is common in your area. In the UK this means that Stinging
Nettles (Urtica dioica) are the prime source for both the aphids and the beetles with the main beetle
species being the 7-spot Ladybird Coccinella 7-punctata and 2-spot Ladybird Adalia bipunctata.
Other useful plants are Thistles, Cirsium ssp., and Knapweed Centaurea ssp. and Roses. In the USA
useful plants to check out are Alfalfa and Soybean crops as well as Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia
indica, during June to September in the South.

Keep in mind when you are collecting your beetles that the appetite of the larvae appears to grow
exponentially when they are in their last instar and you will need to be collecting a lot of aphids if
you have a large population. If you are collecting aphids you will find it easiest if you use a fairly
large container, a smaller holding one and a paintbrush. Some aphids, particularly those which are
good for raising ladybird beetles, have a tendency to fall of vegetation if they feel threatened, which
they will do as soon as you start collecting them.

I have found that wearing a pair of fine leather gloves helps when collecting aphids from nettles. The
simplest method is then to hold the lunch box against one side of a few nettles while bringing your
other hand around so that the nettles are bent over the box. If the nettles are then gently shaken over
the box a fair percentage of the aphids will fall into the box, if they dont they can be persuaded to fall
with the paint brush.

When the aphids area getting difficult to contain by tapping the sides of the box they should be shaken
down to one corner of the box and tipped into the storage bottle. In this way a large number of aphids
can be collected from a nettle stand in a relatively short time.

You will need to do this every day so it is sensible to be sure you have a good supply of aphid
supporting plants nearby. If you do not like the idea of playing with nettles you can grow some other
plants, planting some every week for a month or so will ensure you have a steady supply of aphids.
Sugar-snap peas are a suitable plant to attract aphids, and thus also ladybirds.

Though it is more fun collecting your own beetles and aphids there are times and places where it is
inconvenient or simply not possible. In the USA at least you can now buy Ephestia eggs, these are
the eggs of a moth, but they supply the larvae and adults with all the nutrients they require, so you can
breed several generations (of the Asian Ladybeetle Harmonia axyridis and probably of other
species as well) using these eggs as food. Ladybird diets are also available commercially from some
biological supply agents; however it is also possible to make your own.

To make this diet up you will need the following ingredients per batch.

6 grams ground dried yeast.

9 grams of powdered desiccated liver (can be bought commercially).
15 grams of sugar.
10 cmof pure maple syrup.
2-3 vitamin pills (without iron and or copper) these need to be ground up.
2 grams of agar powder
150 cmof water

Once you have all these together and everything is reduced to a fine powder put the yeast sugar and
liver together in a mug or some such holder. Then mix the agar powder with the water and heat until
fully dissolved, then add the sugar yeast and liver and stir until everything is dissolved. Remove the
pan from the heat and allow to cool to about 50 C before adding the crushed vitamins and the maple
syrup, stir thoroughly, then allow to cool some more before pouring into petri dishes. Put the lids on
the petri dishes, wrap them up with cling film and store them in the fridge, the food should keep for at
least a week. It can be frozen but is not as good then.

To feed the beetles slice the food into strips and then blocks about 4 millimetres square, the cubes can
then be lifted out with a pair of tweezers and placed into the beetle petri dishes. One cube is enough
for about 5 adult beetles, though obviously this differs with species. Smaller cubes can be used for
small larvae. The food should be replaced every day whether it has been eaten or not. It is important
to note that adults will not lay fertile eggs on this artificial diet, for that you need live food, however
you can keep your adults alive and raise the young you hatch from good eggs or find in the wild.
Nevertheless this should always be a last resort sort of food.

References

Majerus, M.E.N. et al, (1989). Ladybirds as teaching aids: 1 collecting and culturing.
Journal of Biological Education 23 (2) pp 85-95.

Majerus, M.E.N. et al, (1989). Ladybirds as teaching aids: 2 Potential for practical and
project work. Journal of Biological Education 23 (3) pp 187-191.

Majerus, M.E.N., and Kearns P.W.E. (1989). Ladybirds. Richmond Publishing, Slough, UK

Kneidel, S.S., (1994). Creepy Crawlies and Scientific Method. Fulcrum Publishing,
Colorado USA.

Majerus, M.E.N, (1994). Ladybirds. Harper Collins, London.

My grateful thanks go to Dr. M.E.N. Majerus of Cambridge University UK for permission to

reproduce his Ladybird diet here.
 Locusts
Introduction

Locusts are members of the insect order Orthoptera, family Acrididae and are commonly available in
many pet shops as food for reptiles and amphibians. The word Acrididae comes from the Greek
word for Orthoptera which is Acrida. Like all the Orthoptera locusts are hemimetabolous meaning
they do not have a complete metamorphosis. Instead the young hatch looking recognisably similar to
the adults and gradually become more like the adults as they pass through each instar. There are a
number of species of orthopteran that are termed locusts around the world. The species I most often
find for sale in Europe are Locusta migratoria and sometimes Schistocerca gregoria.

Locusts are pests in topical, subtropical and some Mediterranean environments so care should be
taken not to allow specimens to escape.

An ideal cage for breeding locusts is 50cm or 60cm tall 40 cm wide by 40cm deep. It has a wooden
back, wooden or mesh sides and a glass, Perspex or mesh front. The roof has a door in it large
enough to allow an adult to reach in and comfortable collect locusts as well as to add and remove
food and water. Fifteen centimetres square is excellent, a cloth sleeve as described in Part 1 can be
added to this door if desired.

The cage should be heated with a light bulb during the day 14 to 16 hours, but this should be turned
off at night and the cage allowed to cool down. The natural home of locusts gets hot during the day
but quite cool at night. The bulb should be separated from the rest of the cage by metal mesh to
prevent insects and people from burning themselves on it, it is therefore most convenient to situate it
in a top corner of the cage. The cage should contain some branches or stick for the locusts to climb
on and to hang from when they moult.

Ideally locusts should be fed fresh grass, perhaps stood in a container of oasis and water. However
they are not overly fussy and will eat a variety of greens as well as thin slices of carrot and or apple
peal, providing it is fresh. They will even eat dried grass and bran flakes, in which case they will
need to be offered some water in a shallow bowl filled with a sponge as well as with water, as this
sponge becomes mucky and or tatty it should be replaced. The spongy part of a dish scourer will do,
providing it is well washed to remove any chemicals. It is not difficult to experiment with a variety
of foods to see what they will eat, especially if you live in an area where grass becomes difficult to
obtain for part of the year.

Mating will occur quite naturally and requires no special effort. The females will want to lay their
eggs in damp sand, this is best supplied in small containers 10 cm square and 10 cm deep. The sand
should be level with the top of the container If these are made with a wooden skirt sloping down at 45
degrees on two sides they will fit easily into a corner of the cage. They can be collected every week
or so and stored with a lid in a warm dark cupboard, eggs will hatch in two weeks at 28 C to 33 C
but will take longer at a warm room temperature and you risk the eggs dying. A number of egg boxes
should be made so that if you wish to study reproductive rates etc. they can be replaced each day for a
period of time.
The nymphs first hatch out in a sort of safety suit that wraps all their limbs close to their body, at this
stage they are called a 'pronymph'. When they reach the surface of the sand they moult again into a
feeding form often referred to as a hopper in pet shops. They pass through 5 more moults to become
adults. As soon as the nymphs emerge into the hopper stage they can be put in with the adults.
Though this care sheet is aimed at culturing locusts many of the orthopteran suborder Ensifera, called
Grasshoppers in Europe or Short-horned Grasshoppers in the USA have similar life cycles and
should do well in such a set up, though some species may prefer a soft loam to sand.

See http://www.earthlife.net/insects/orthoptera.html for more on the biology of the Orthoptera in

general.
 The Lucanidae

Prosocopoilus giraffe, photo

copyright :- John Moore

Introduction

The Lucanidae are a family of beetles commonly know as Stag Beetles because of the enlarged
mandibles of the males, they are amazing beetles and much sort after by breeders, especially in
Japan. As with the Scarabaeidae there are a large number of species within the family. The reason
the Japanese are so into stag beetles is perhaps because they have about 80 species and subspecies,
whereas on the other side of the Eurasian land mass we have 3, two of which are small and do not
exhibit the enlarged mandibles. The care of Stag beetles is fairly similar between species, except that
some have longer life cycles than others and that many will only be raised successfully on one two
genera of trees.

General.

To keep the adults you will need one largish cage and one or more smaller cages.
Stag beetles vary in their environmental range and some are quite tolerant of temperature changes,
however life is easiest if you keep them in a mildly humid environment, at a temperature of around 75
C to 80 C it is also good if you can let the temperature drop at night, 80 C during the day and 70 C at
night is fine.

The substrate should be a mixture of rotting wood, but some variation in the degree of rottenness is
desirable and it is best to offer the female a range from still fairly hard to quite rotten pieces of wood
to lay in. If you have 5 cm of rotting wood and leaf mould as a base with a selection of pieces of
wood on this it should be OK. The species of wood is important and it is necessary to offer the
females the correct type of tree or she probably will not lay.

The adults can be fed on fruit such as banana, cherry or peach and the female should be offered some
high protein supplement, such as dried dog food, or even the larvae of other beetles such as Chafers.
Once the female has started laying eggs it is best to remove the male and keep him in a separate
container.

Although more than one female can be housed in a large laying cage, only one male at a time should
be allowed in any cage. Their fighting will inevitable cause them to be damaged and it will disrupt
the females, also mating is more assured if only one male is present. No lighting is needed for the
larvae and it is quite OK to keep them permanently in the dark.

The eggs take about two weeks to hatch, and if the female has laid them in the more solid portions of
wood you may need to wait until they have grown a little before you separate them out. However the
larvae will be cannibalistic and you will need to separate them out before too long. You can then rear
them in individual containers with a mixture of 1:1 rotting wood and leaf mould. They should also be
offered a protein supplement in the form of dried dog food and or wood rotting mushrooms such as
Pleurotus, or Coprinus, commercially available Shitake and Oyster mushrooms are also good.

A point that is not much considered by breeders currently is the kind of rot infecting the wood. Wood
decay comes in 3 broad categories, Brown rot, Soft rot and White rot depending on the type of fungus
that is rotting the wood. As it is the fungus that the larvae are digesting more than the wood it seems
natural that this may be an important factor in determining which dead trunks the larvae will do well
in.

In 1992 Kunio Araya, a scientist at the University of Kyoto, showed that among Lucanidae, Brown
rotted wood was preferred by Ceruchus lignarius and Aesalus asiaticus, Soft rotted wood by
Platycerus auticollis while Niponodorcus (Dorcus) montivagus, N. (D.) rubrofermoratus and
Platycerus delicatulus were only found in White rotted wood. Prismognathus angularis was also
found far more common in White rotted wood and only Macrodorcas (Dorcus) striatipennis was
found in all three sorts of rot. It will be interesting to see what we learn when different breeders start
testing information like this in their search for success.

The larvae are sometimes delicate and it is best not to handle them unless you have to. It is best to
move them by picking them up in a spoon scooping up the substrate they are resting on. Like many
large beetles the larvae will go through 3 instars and probably more than half their life will be in the
last instar. Finally after 1 or 2 years depending on species the larvae will become very wrinkled, this
is a sign that it is ready to pupate. The cage should not be moved from now until the adult emerges
about one month later.

In the wild most northern hemisphere species lay eggs in the August or September and pupate in June.
In captivity under relatively constant temperature this time scale may well be disrupted. The adults of
some species will live for several years, and will, if kept in an unheated room burrow into some
rotten wood in order to hibernate during the winter.

It is important, as with all invertebrate breeding to maintain the cages in a clean condition and to
replace uneaten food supplements (dog food and fruit) at least every couple of days if not daily. If
you live in Japan there is a huge comical market in products and literature available on breeding these
beetles, some of which you can access over the internet.
In captivity most Stag Beetles take between 1 and 3 years to reach maturity, which is often much
shorter than the time taken in the wild, colder temperatures and less nutritious food can mean that in
the UK Lucanus cervus can take up to 6 years to finish its larval development in the wild.

References:

Kunio Araya, (1993). Relationship between the Decay Types of Dead Wood and the Occurrence of
Lucanid Beetles (Coleoptera: Lucanidae). Appl. Entomol. Zool. 28 (1): 27-33
 Praying Mantids

Mantis religiosa photographed wild in Greece. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

The Mantids, Praying Mantids or Mantises are members of the insect order Dictyoptera, which they
share with the Cockroaches. The mantids are in the suborder Mantodea while the cockroaches are in
the suborder Blattodea. There are about are about 1,800 known species of mantids. Most mantids
are from tropical countries although a few do occur in cooler Mediterranean climates. They are also
fairly closely related to the other orthopteroid orders the stick insects (Phasmida) and the
grasshoppers (Orthoptera) respectively.

Like their relatives, mantids undergo simple or incomplete metamorphosis, meaning they are
hemimetabolous; they do not have a maggot or caterpillar but go through several juvenile stages all of
which look like miniature, but wingless, adults. Mantids are extremely popular animals both as pets
and in the class room and in many parts of the world, local species can be caught and kept for a while
then released again.

To learn more about mantids in general visit my web site at

http://www.earthlife.net.insects/mantodea.html

Because of their tropical origins mantids need to be kept warm, as a general rule 20 C to 25 C will be
ideal. The best way to keep them warm is to keep them somewhere where the temperature is
naturally high enough for them, second best is to keep them in a heated room, a normally centrally
heated room is often satisfactory. If however the room can not be maintained at a suitable
temperature then you will need to supply some additional heating, for mantids this is best supplied
through light bulbs, red during the night and white during the day.

Initially a small container such as a yoghurt pot with a couple of twigs or strips of cardboard, 3 by 1
inch entomological tube or any other small container will make suitable cage and thousands of
mantids are raised in such cages. It is more attractive to raise mantids in larger cages with some
vegetation for them to climb on, however in this case they have to be offered excess amounts of food
to give them a reasonable chance of catching their dinner.

As the mantis grows it will shed its skin several times, becoming larger at each stage. It can progress
into a jam jar and then into a sweet jar. The top of the yoghurt pot can be covered with several layers
of cling-film, with a strip of clear sticking tape over the top. A small hole can be made through the
sticking tape and cling-film to allow food to be put in. The hole can be plugged with a piece of
sponge which can be wetted to maintain humidity. A similar plug can be used in the neck of a bottle
or a hole drilled in the lid of a jar. Whatever type of cage is used a stick or branch should be
provided for the insect to hang from when it sheds its skin and the distance from the top of the branch
to the floor must be at least three times the length of the insect.

Larger mantids will often take food items from your hand, and many people like to let them roam
around a room whilst they are in it. Unlike roaches and spiders they are easy enough to catch with a
net or by hand, because they do not like to hide under things.

The eggs are produced in a special egg case called an ootheca this may hold 30 to 300 eggs
depending on the species. Hatching usually occurs between 3 and 6 months after laying with
temperate species normally taking the longer time. The young may hatch all at once or in batches over
a period of several weeks. The ootheca should be suspended at least 10 cm above the floor of the
cage. When the young hatch they hang by a thread from the ootheca until their skin hardens off. The
young should be fed on fruit flies (Drosophila spp.), aphids or other small insects. They do well if
supplied with as much food as they can eat although they can last quite a while without food.

I have devised a cage which has two stories with a 2 mm mesh between them. I breed fruit flies in
the bottom half (not flightless forms) and house young mantids in the top. The fruit flies breed in a
bananary mess (see Fruit fly section), which would be a trap for the mantid were they simply together,
but the 2mm mesh in between stories keeps the young mantid out of trouble. However the adult flies
will pass through the mesh into the young mantids quarters in their search for new substrate to lay
their eggs in. Breeding in this manner reduces the time taken feeding each mantid and the number of
fruit flies that escape and is quite useful if you have a number of young mantids.

Many species are very aggressive towards each other and if kept in groups they will eat each other
especially as one or two become slightly larger than their brothers and sisters. So it is advisable to
house them separately. Some species will happily tackle prey as large as themselves. As they grow
they can be given larger prey, almost any insects will be eaten.

Most Mantids do not usually need to drink, though this will be partially dependant on the humidity of
the atmosphere you keep them at. However if you mist the inside of the cage you may observe them
drinking, and they need a certain amount of humidity to help them moult successfully so misting the
cage every day or so, or supplying a small container filled with water, and pebbles or cotton wool so
they can get out of it if they fall into it, is a good idea.

Sexing mantids is difficult when they are small, but fairly easy when adult. Eight segments can be
counted on the underside of the males abdomen and six on that of the female (in some species the end
segments are difficult to see and only seven or five can be seen).

After two or three weeks as adults the mantids can be mated. Both should be fed as much as they will
eat for several days before the male is introduced to the female's cage. It is advisable to use a large
cage for the mating and feeding them well before hand is essential otherwise the female will eat the
male before mating occurs.

Mating may occur immediately or it may take the male a day or so to make his approach. Mating may
last a day or more so it is a good idea to keep the cage supplied with food so the female can eat while
mating. The male should be removed as soon as mating has finished. Though the male is eaten by the
female fairly regularly in some species this is not always the case and I have kept males who have
mated successfully with 3 females and lived to tell the tale.

After mating the female will eat a lot and become very fat before laying an ootheca on a branch or
side of the container, if she is already fat she may well lay her first ootheca the day after mating. She
will lay several others, usually about six, but only needs to be mated once

Young Mantids, like young Cockroaches, Grasshoppers and Crickets, hatch as a pronymph surrounded
by a protective membrane within which they move like grubs to the surface of the ootheca. In some
species there is a single exit tube along the bottom of the ootheca from which the young Mantids
emerge individually, in others the young emerge through the oothecal wall nearest their particular egg
cell, in either case they will hang suspended from the ootheca on silken cords secreted by a pair of
papillae on the lower side of the 10th abdominal segment.

In those species where they all emerge from a single exit tube these cords will get pretty tangled, but
the young mantids seem to extract themselves OK. They rapidly escape their protective case and
climb up the silken cord to the ootheca. Mantids will go through 5 moults before they reach
adulthood.

Recommended Species

Sphodromantis viridis from West Africa is an easy species to keep, very suitable for beginners. They
are about 8 cm long and either bright green to light brown in colour. They will happily take food of
their own size and they will also take pieces of meat if it is offered on a pair of tweezers. Their
ootheca can contain up to 300 eggs.

Mantis religiosa, The Common Mantid this a similarly sized species which occurs in Central to
Southern Europe, Southern Canada, temperate Asia and the USA, it is a medium sized green or
brown insect that is an excellent first species.
Tenodera aridifolia sinensis or Chinese Mantis is an introduced species in the USA, it also occurs
naturally in Asia, again it is a similar size to the above. It is another easy species to obtain and rear.

References

Heath, G.L. and Cowgill, G. (1989). Rearing and Studying Praying Mantids, AES Leaflet
No.36. The Amateur Entomological Society, Feltham Middlesex.

Hess, L. (1971)The Praying Mantis: Insect Cannibal. Charles Scribner and Sons, New York

Sylvia A. and Johnson S.A. (1984), Mantises : Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis.
 Mealworms
Introduction

Mealworms, are the larvae of a beetle scientifically known as Tenebrio molitor and are a member of
the Coleoptera family Tenebrionidae. They are exceptionally easy to rear in culture and are one of
the most useful additions to a schools biology teaching resources as they are large enough to be
easily seen and survive gentle handling quite well. The larvae, and to a lesser extent the adults can
be used as a food source for carnivorous invertebrates and vertebrates. Being beetles they are
holometabolous meaning they have a four stage life cycle of:- egg - larval instars - pupae -adult.

A culture can be kept in practically any container with a mesh lid held on with an elastic band. I have
raised them quite happily in lunch boxes and in large plastic storage jars 10 cm wide by 30 cm high.

In the wild they live under the bark of trees, however in captivity they are quite happy if the container
is 50% filled with bran flakes. Moisture is best supplied as a few slices of potato placed on top of
the bran; the larvae will burrow up to these when they need moisture. These should be replaced as
they dry out. At room temperature the life cycle is eggs - 2 to 3 weeks to hatch, larvae 6 to 8 weeks,
pupa 2 to 3 weeks and then the adult. Adults will mate a few days after emerging from their pupae
and egg-laying will commence in about 2 weeks.

As with all cultures of this sort it is worth maintaining several cultures, even keeping some in
different rooms. The biggest problem with mealworms is mites which are attracted to the bran meal.
If mite infestation becomes serious it is best to rescue adult beetles and larger larvae individually
then discard the bran, baking it in the oven or microwave will kill off the mites, it can then be added
to the garden compost and a new culture started with the rescued livestock.

The simplest way to obtain a culture is to visit your local pet shop where the larvae are more than
likely sold as live pet food. Otherwise most biological supply companies will send you a culture for
a small fee.
 Milkweed bugs
Introduction

Milkweed bugs are members of the insect order Hemiptera making them true bugs. They are part of
the family Lygaeidae, commonly called Ground Bugs, most of which feed on the seeds of plants,
though some are omnivorous and a few such as the Cinch bug Blissus leucopterus which feeds on
plant sap are pests.

The large milkweed bug Oncopeltus fasciatus is a useful bug to keep in schools as it is fairly large
and relatively easy to rear. Milkweed bugs are distinctive animals, being reddish orange colour with
black markings, 3 dots on the thorax, a diamond shaped splotch on the head and a band across the
wings The legs and antennae are black as well. They are about 1.5 cm long as adults. The
colouration is similar in the immature stages.

For more information on Hemiptera in general see my web site at

http://www.earthlife.net/insects/hemiptera.html

The easiest way to acquire a colony of Milkweed bugs is go out into the fields and collect some (USA
only). Milkweed bugs feed on the seeds of the common milkweed Ascelpias syriaca though they can
be found on other milkweeds as well. The best time to collect them is in mid-summer. You will also
need to collect a supply of seeds, this is best done in August and September as the pods are just
opening. It is a good idea to remove the seeds from the pods and the down/hairs that surround them in
the field as it can be quite messy otherwise.

Alternatively a strain of Milkweed bugs has been produced that lives on sunflower seeds and it may
be possible to generate your own strain by collecting a load of bugs and offering two separate
selections of food, milkweed seeds and sunflower seeds, any individuals observed feeding at the
sunflower seeds should then be isolated and fed a diet of only sunflower seeds. The drawback to this
is that there will inevitably be deaths as some bugs may survive for a while on the sunflower seeds
before dying. The up side is that you can have your ordinary colony and you may well develop a
sunflower strain that will be easier to keep.

Milkweed bugs are best kept in a glass container such as a small to medium fish tank, a large jar or a
Small Pal Pen. You will need a mesh lid of some sort as they will readily climb the sides of the
cage. The adults can fly although they are not noticeably flighty. It is also a useful idea to put a layer
of Vaseline, grease or Fluon (see the page on ants) around the inside-top of the cage to stop them
climbing out when the cage is open.

Grease or Vaseline will collect dust which will render it quickly valueless as a deterrent to escape so
it will need to be renewed occasionally, Fluon does not collect dust but it is easily scraped off by
arms etc. The cage will be happier, and look more attractive if there is a few cm of sterilised sand in
the bottom and some twigs or other bits of wood included for them to crawl on. Water should be
offered in the usual shallow dish sunk into the substrate filled with sponge or oasis as well as water.

Eggs are laid in clusters of 10 to 50 eggs and there is no need to remove them from the culture. If the
culture is maintained between 70 and 80 C the eggs will hatch in one to two weeks during which time
they will have changed from yellow to deep orange in colour. The nymphs are bright red in colour on
hatching (similar to Assassin bugs) and they will go through 5 instars before becoming adult. If the
temperature and the food source are maintained the culture will continue to cycle through any number
of generations.

The sunflower feeding form of the Large Milkweed Bug is available from both Carolina Biological
Supply Company and Wards Scientific, addresses are listed at the end of the book.
 Millipedes

Unidentified giant African

Millipede, held by a young girl - Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

All Millipedes, like Arachnids and Insects are members of the phylum Arthropoda. Within the
phylum Arthropoda they are part of the Class Myriapoda (which they share with the Centipedes and a
few other smaller groups) and within the class Myriapoda they are the subclass Diplopoda.

Millipedes are different from centipedes in that each segment of their body is actually two segments
fused together; the Di in Diplopoda is a reference to this. Millipedes do not actually have 1,000,000
legs, or even 1,000 (milli is the Latin for one thousand and not for one million) but they do have a lot,
and some species can have more than 700, though yours will probably have between 200 and 300
when it is an adult (count the body segments multiply by 4 and subtract 8). Millipedes are essentially
soil animals, and in some ecosystems they are more important than worms as agents of soil turn over,
and like worms they eat the soil as they burrow through it.

For more information on Millipedes in general see my web page at

http://www.earthlife.net/insects/diplopod.html

The cage should be larger than the Millipedes, I prefer a fish tank at least as wide and four times as
long as the length of the largest Millipede. Like many invertebrates millipedes will live for some
time in smaller cages but it shows little respect for the animal if you are not willing to house it
comfortably. All Millipedes are burrowers to some extent and the cage should contain at least 10 cm
of a damp mixture of leaf mould and soil. The substrate should be kept damp at all times. Millipedes
produce a lot of faeces and eat the soil so it is important to clean them out occasionally. The
substrate from the cage makes excellent potting compost.

All Giant Millipedes come from tropical or sub-tropical environments and you will need to keep
them warm, the best way to heat the cage is in a centrally heated room, but other than this the next best
is with a Heat-mat, this should be placed so that half the cage is resting on it and half isn't as this will
create a temperature gradient and allow your pets to find their own favourite spots.

Remember the soil will dry out from the bottom up if it is heated from below by a heat-pad, and you
might not notice this, also it will dry out more quickly at the heated end. Regular applications of
water are needed. When you are changing the substrate be very careful. Millipedes moult in special
cells they make in the soil, during this time their skin is soft and it is vulnerable to disturbance. This
is a good reason for not keeping too many in one cage as it reduces the frequency with which you will
have to clean the cage.

A bare cage is boring for both you and your pet, personally I like to decorate my tanks with pieces of
wood covered in moss and the occasional stone, though leaving some bare soil as well, the larger
African millipedes in particular will enjoy the moss coated logs, lighting the tank with a tropical fish
tank lighting system will enable the moss to continue growing. The creation of beauty is fulfilling for
the human spirit, as is respect for the needs of other living things.

Different species of Millipede feed on different things in the wild, many eat rotten fruit and
vegetables, but some are specialist on fallen and decaying leaves, and some particularly like fungi,
you should ask your supplier what yours will eat when you get it. If he seems unsure or you have
already bought them try offering your Millipedes a mixture of leaf-litter in various states of decay and
some freshly over ripe soft fruit (stone fruits, tomatoes and bananas are good, as are small melons and
pumpkins) with some mushrooms and or lettuce occasionally. Many millipedes seem to appreciate a
variety anyway.

It is important to remember that Millipedes have a positive requirement for Calcium in their diet (they
use it to build their skeletons) and you will need to supply them with some, you can buy calcium
supplements from most pet shops these days. You can also make your own by scraping a cuttle-fish
skeleton with a knife over their food and into the compost.

Your millipedes will breed naturally if they are adult and happy. Their genitalia are on their 3rd body
segment, and the males have the 1st pair of legs on their 7th body segment modified into a special pair
of clasping organs, they often carry these held up close to the body and this allows you to tell what
sex your Millipede is.

Millipedes have a simple courtship which involves the male walking along the females back and
stimulating her with rhythmic pulses of his legs. When the female raises her front segments the male
entwines his body around her and when their genitalia are opposed sperm transfer occurs. Females
can and will mate many times, but can apparently be damaged or even killed by larger males which
can force them to bend backwards too far (although I never had this happen and I kept various species
for many years).

The female will lay her eggs in a nest she constructs of compressed soil below the soil surface, in
many species she will stand guard over her eggs until they hatch. Baby Millipedes are born with only
4 or 5 body segments of which the first has no legs at all and the next three have only one pair of legs
each and the rest have none, as they grow they rapidly add more 'diplo' segments each time they moult
(each of these has the normal 2 pairs of legs).

Like all other Arthropods Millipedes grow by moulting (shedding their skins), millipedes moult
underneath the soil surface in a special little chamber they build for this purpose so don't worry if you
don't see them doing it. You will have to be patient though because millipedes are slow growers and
the largest species can take up to 10 years to reach maturity. Most different species of millipedes can
be kept together providing they have the right foods and the cage is large enough to prevent
overcrowding.

Some species of Giant Millipedes can exude a defensive fluid from special repugnatorial glands
along their bodies and in some cases these can be very corrosive so do be careful. Having said this I
should add that I have never been hurt by any of the Millipedes I have kept. On a final note
Millipedes make wonderful and fascinating pets if cared for properly and I wish you lots of fun with
yours.

References

Hopkin S. P. and Read H. J. (1992) The Biology of Millipedes, Oxford University Press.
ISBN = 0 19 857699 4
 Mixed Cultures
Introduction

Invertebrates of any sort do not naturally live in the monocultures that we keep them in when we are
rearing them. To the contrary most invertebrates share their habitat with numerous other
invertebrates. It has been something of a hobby of mine that I like experimenting with cages of mixed
invertebrates. Not only has this given me a lot of interesting experiences but it has also proven of
interest to others at insect and other similar shows.

It is not possible to simply reproduce a bit of the wild in a fish tank, far to many of the animals
concerned will not survive well in confinement. Rather it is interesting to build a community from the
sorts of species commonly available. A tank with a variety of invertebrates in it looks far more
interesting than a cage with just a one species in it.

There is a huge scope for experimentation and learning here, and I hope people will contact me in the
future with their experiences. Here I will give what advice I can based on my experiences, however
it should be accepted that these are limited and that I am only one person. There is room in this field
for many peoples experiences.

Mixed cultures can be simply, containing only two or three species or more complicated and
containing many. Keeping millipedes and cockroaches together is fairly straight forward, as is
something like keeping scorpions in the cricket breeding cage, although they get awfully fat.
However the more interesting aggregations require more thought, and the more species involved the
more complex the interactions.

Firstly I would say a largish fish tank is your basic requirement, I would not recommend trying the
sort of experiments I have done in anything smaller than a tank 60 cm by 30 cm by 30 cm, and I found
more fun and scope in a tank 100 cm by 45 cm 45 cm. The tank had a wooden frame nylon mesh lid
with a fish tank light on top and I kept it in a permanently heated room, 24 C to 29 C. The smaller
cage was similarly lidded and lighted and was also quite successful.

I kept a leaf mould substrate of 10 cm to 15 cm depth in the base of the tanks. The substrate was
sculptured, deeper in some parts than others, though the effect of burrowing animals, such as the
millipedes, was to even the landscape gardening out.

Inside the tanks I created as much habitat space as possible with a mixture stones, flat rocks piled
against the side of the tank, piles of twigs 0.5 cm to 2 cm in diameter, a few pieces of larger well
rotted wood, and bark. A water bowl filled with sponge was at one end to supply everyones water
needs and I had plant pot bases to hold fruit and rolled oats mixed with bran separately. Though this
did not always work out so well, large cockroaches and millipedes will drag or push pieces of fruit
and veg around, and crickets carry/throw the bran everywhere. However having these containers in
the cage did make removing rotten food easier.

At one stage I had:- 1 tarantula, 2 scorpions, 4 large tiger Beetles, 6 millipedes and breeding
colonies of Gryllus crickets, Acheta crickets, giant meal worms, hissing cockroaches, assassin bugs,
Collembola and woodlice all living in the one cage.

I soon removed the tarantula as she was not happy with that many disrespectful neighbours. Then
later I had to try again without the giant mealworms as their population grew too large, the larvae
feeding voraciously in the soil ate the eggs of the crickets and the cricket population kept crashing.
The predators had little effect on the larvae because they lived beneath the soil. Without the
mealworms the culture was more stable, but the cockroaches failed to multiply, or to be more exact
the young failed to survive the assassin bugs. The adults are quite long lived so there were always
some cockroaches in the tank.

The only thing that preyed on the assassin bugs were larger assassin bugs, though this did little to
control the population. However if you take the assassin bugs out the crickets soon over-populate the
culture, which is OK if you are happy to be breeding an excess of crickets. The Acheta species
seemed to out-compete the Gryllus species but I did not maintain the experiments long enough to be
sure of this.

Cockroaches, both Gromphadorhina and Blaberus are happy together, and millipedes are happy with
them. Add crickets to this and you still have no problems, if the cage is large, food is plentiful and
you remove excess stock this sort of cage is fine. Add to these the tiger beetles and a couple of
scorpions and you still really have no problems, and the cage is fascinating.

So to some up my results, tarantulas do not like cages full of crickets; just enough for dinner is fine.
The crickets will walk all over the tarantula who gets no peace. Assassin bugs are a bit of a mistake
as they are just too good at killing everything else, and giant mealworms also rapidly become a
nuisance. Otherwise a mixed species, even mixed order tank works reasonably well and is lots of fun
to watch.

There are of course many other combinations which I never tried and you will have to have fun
finding your own balances.
 Mosquitoes

Aedes vexans biting the

author. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Mosquitoes may at first glance seem like a strange animal to include in a book like this, after all,
arent most people trying to get rid of mosquitoes. However they are a very useful animal to have in
culture, not only because they can be used in a variety of ways in the school but also because their
larvae are a very useful food source for small fish and other aquatic carnivores. Mosquitoes are
flies, members of the order Diptera, and the family Culicidae, they have a holometabolous life cycle,
egg, larvae, pupa, adult.

There are about 1,500 species of mosquitoes in the world, I am only recommending the culture of
very specific species here. Firstly because it would be highly irresponsible to culture species which
are involved in the transmission of disease and secondly, because most species of mosquito are quite
difficult to rear in culture because they, like the Chironomids mentioned earlier in the book, need
space to form swarms in and because the females require a blood meal before they can lay their eggs.

Culex pipiens molestus in the UK and Culex pipiens pipiens in the USA are the useful exceptions to
these generalities and can be raised quite easily without in a confined space without anybody getting
bitten at all. This does not mean that the females of this species cannot bite, just that they can breed
without biting. They certainly are capable of biting and care should be taken to prevent adults from
escaping, this includes not leaving pupae in situation where the emerging adults can fly free.

Culex pipiens is a common species in many cities around the world as well as in most wetland
habitats and it is a disease vector in many places. In the wild it normally does have a blood meal,
usually from birds, but it will happily bite humans and is known as the House Mosquito in some
places. So you should think about whether you really want to breed it or not.
To raise your mosquitoes you will need some sort of container with a tight fitting lid that can hold
water. Preferably it should have a tap at the base to allow water and immature mosquitoes to be
extracted without risk of the adults escaping. If this is not available then you will need a siphon of
some sort. The container will need a wide enough mouth to allow you to get your hand inside when it
is time to clean it and a screw-on cap to this mouth.

You will want one hole in the centre of the cap with a funnel in it that will allow you to add food on a
regular basis. This can be blocked when not in use with cotton wool or something similar. A second
hole will be needed to admit an aeration tube. This should have an air stone at the end and be
attached to an air pump, ideally a valve inserted in the tube between the pump and the container will
allow the air flow to be kept to a minimum. If the air flow is too great it will disrupt the larvae from
breathing and the adults from laying eggs.

The eggs are laid in rafts floating on the surface. A couple of larger holes 1 or 2 cm in diameter
should also be drilled into the lid and then covered with a fine mesh, insect screen is ideal, the holes
want to be no larger than 1 or 2 millimetres across. If the container is transparent it will be necessary
to find a way to cover it so as to keep the light out, this is to prevent algae from growing within the
culture. A plastic home brewing barrel designed for beer or wine is an excellent container, however
any container that can be made to fit the above conditions will do.

You will also need a starter culture of larvae, and some food. The adults do not have to feed,
although as I said above females normally will if given the chance, so they are not a problem. The
larvae are filter feeders, feeding both at the water surface and at the bottom of the tank. To fed the
larvae laboratories tend to use mixtures of Powdered Liver, Sucrose and Yeast in a ratio of 3:2:10.

However for general purposes rodent pellet foods, will work quite well. These are made up to
differing recipes around the world and it would be worth experimenting with different types. There
is no reason you cannot experiment with your own diets. The amount of feeding depends on the size
of your container and the temperature it is kept at. For a 22 litre barrel at room temperature a
teaspoon full of pellets per week should be adequate.

An ideal temperature is 26 C to 28 C, warmer than this serves little purpose and cooler slows down
development time. With a little practice you should be able to have a culture that is producing as
many mosquitoes as you desire.

To extract larvae or pupae for study simply open the tap, or pump the siphon, with a container below,
if you are using the larvae and pupae as food items in an aquarium then it is simplest to let the water
flow through an aquarium net to catch as many as you want, the water can then be returned to the
container and the mosquitoes dumped into the aquarium.

I would recommend having at least two cultures running with different feeding regimes if you wish to
be sure of a continuous supply, I would also recommend that you have some spare containers so that
the inhabitants of one can be moved to a fresh container when it is time to clean an occupied one.

Air pumps, air stones, air tubing and valves can all be bought from most pet shops, one pump will
easily run half a dozen stones at the low level that is required in these cultures.

In the UK the book Mosquitoes by Keith Snow published in 1990 by The Richmond Publishing Co.
Ltd, Slough (pbk 8.95 UK or $14.95 USA ) contains a key to species identification. I do not know
of a similar book dealing with American species.

Other than this it may well be worth canvassing entomological research institutes within your national
borders to see if they can point you in the direction of a supplier.
 Scarabaeidae

Jumnos ruckerii from Thailand. Photo copyright :- Ian Abercrombie 2005

Introduction

The Scarabaeidae are a large and successful family of beetles (over 20,000 species), many of whom
are large and either attractively coloured or adorned with horns and spines. The family includes three
subfamilies attractive to beetle breeders, the Cetoniinae which include many brightly coloured, often
metallic looking beetles in the genera Cetonia, Chelorrhina, Goliathus, Pachnoda and
Stephanorrhina. The Dynastinae which includes the Elephant, Hercules and Rhinoceros beetles in the
genera Allomyrrhina, Chalcasoma, Dynastes, Megasoma and Phileurus.

The third family is the Scarabaeinae which are dung beetles, many of the larger species of which are
of interest because of their dung rolling habits and their habit of showing great parental care of their
larvae. Dung beetles, especially the rolling and burying kinds, can be quite easily kept in captivity; all
they need is an acceptable species of dung, 20 cm or more of not too dry soil and a temperature
around 75C, in a fish tank with a mesh lid. It is fun to experiment, providing you are not keeping them
too close to the family's living quarters as they all like their dung as fresh as possible. See
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/dung.html for more information on dung beetles.

There are a huge number of beetles in the first two subfamilies that are regularly kept and bred in
captivity and a whole book could be written about the Scarabaeidae quite easily. Here I offer only a
brief outline of the necessities that should allow you to start breeding these wonderful beetles.

Subfamily Dynastinae
 Eupatoris cracilicornis, photo copyright :- John Moore

Rhinoceros Beetles is the term commonly given to the 1,400 members of the Beetle family
Scarabaeidae, subfamily Dynastinae. These beetles are predominantly tropical and most common in
the Americas, they are characterised by extreme sexual dimorphism, meaning the males and females
are physically very different. In the Dynastinae this takes the form of the males having large horns on
their heads and prothorax. It is their often large size, combined with these horns, that makes them
popular with breeders.

General Notes

These are all large beetles which can bite and many have spurs or spines on their legs, they are
incredibly strong. Minor injuries are likely if you do not show the animals the respect they deserve,
the 3rd instar larvae are also capable of biting if not handled with care.

In the wild adult Rhinoceros beetles feed on plant sap and probably juices from fallen fruit while
their larvae feed on rotting wood and decaying leaves. In captivity the adults can be fed on fruits such
as apple and banana. The larvae of most species need to be fed on rotting, generally very rotten
wood, mixed with semi-rotten leaves. If you are seriously going to get into breeding these or the
larger Cetoniids it is worth making yourself some compost.

Use either a commercial compost bin or a large refuse bin and fill it with maple, apple, oak or beech
as the leaves of these species of trees appear to be most acceptable. It is also worth searching out a
supply of well rotted, pesticide and herbicide free, wood before you acquire your beetles.

For some species compost well compressed into the housing cage will suffice, other species will
only be successful on wood. In most cases there is plenty of room for experimentation. Unlike the
related Stag beetles there does not seem to be a requirement with most species for a particular
species of tree. Food for the adults needs to be fresh every day or so and uneaten food should be
removed as it will only attract pests such as flies and mites.
Most of the larger species of Dynastinae will do much better if offered slightly moistened dried dog
food as a supplement to their diet. This applies to all 3 instars. If the dog food is placed under a piece
of bark the larvae will be able to access it without coming into the open air which they do not like.

These beetles are large animals, particularly species of Megasoma and they require a lot of space, a
50 litre fish tank is a good size for breeding a pair of most species. Non breeding individuals can be
maintained in smaller cages. The depth of compost or wood required for egg laying is roughly
between 15cm and 20cm for most species but should be nearer 40cm for Megasoma species. If
compost is used it needs to be free of all herbicides, pesticides etc.

A tropical forest temperature is preferable (75C to 80C) and it is best maintained by having the tank
in a heated room. Finally the tank needs to be maintained at a high humidity, although if the substrate
is kept damp this will not be a problem.

These beetles are bred in a wide variety of containers by different people and the nature of the
container is not as important as that it should fulfil the requirements of the beetles, thus you can make
your own breeding cages up out of Perspex if you wish. Perspex is light and does not break easily
which gives it definite advantages over glass. Perspex can have hinged doors on it providing the
holes are drilled right through the Perspex and the hinges bolted on rather than screwed on, plastic
bolts and nuts are available these days, but if you cannot find them be sure to use rubber washers
between metal hinge and Perspex. Also in making your own cages you can design them to suit your
requirements and available space.

A cage 90cm high by 60cm square would allow you to breed just about anything. The area of free
space above the substrate needs to be at least as high as the substrate is deep, preferably more so, and
should be supplied with a few branches 10cm or so in diameter for the adults to climb on. The
substrate must not be allowed to dry out, especially while the female is laying and the eggs are
incubating. Light is necessary in some species in order for mating to take place, but it is not a
requirement for the larvae which spend most of their lives under the ground.

Mating is not normally a problem, with most species coupling quite readily in captivity. Once the
female has started laying the eggs the male should be removed from the breeding cage. The eggs can
either be left in situ, or carefully dug out and rehoused individually. When digging the eggs out
remember that unlike bird eggs beetle eggs do not have hard shells to protect them so they are easily
damaged, Dynastinae and some Cetoniinae compact the substrate then lay an egg inside these
compressed areas of wood, this can be a great help in finding eggs.

Housing the larvae individually has the benefits of reducing the loss to mite infestations, but the added
problem of requiring more cages. Depending on the size of the beetle you will need a 5 to 10 litre
tank per larvae, remember, in their last instar the larvae will be bigger than the adult beetles. If you
do decide to dig the eggs out they should be gently reburied beneath 4 to 5 cm of compost. Newly
hatched and freshly moulted larvae normally have a day off eating while their cuticle hardens. The
head capsule and jaws will often darken during this time. The larva will go through 3 instars before
pupation.
Xylotrupes gideon, from Thailand
Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Though most of these larger species are fairly robust, it is best to keep handling to a minimum and to
thoroughly wash your hands with an anti-bacterial soap and then fresh water before handling. Few
things are as disappointing as raising a larva through the first year then inadvertently killing it with
some bacteria from your hands.

Finally you have to be patient, these are large beetles, feeding on a low nutrient food, dead wood is
not very nutritious, and they take a long time to develop, it is no good trying to breed these beetles
unless you are willing to maintain the care for years at a time.

Dynastes
Dynastes granti is a native of South-western USA and D. tityus occurs in South-eastern USA these
are therefore the most easily obtainable species in the USA, while 4 other species of Dynastes are
found in Central and Southern America. D. hercules and D. neptunas are the largest and often the
most sought after, D. tityus is also popular because they possess side horns.

The eggs of Dynastes species in captivity generally require quite a long time to hatch, often 4 months
or longer, although there is considerable variability. Developmental time for the larvae is about 18
months; they pupate below ground in pupation cells they make for themselves, pupation last about one
month, though the adults will often wait a while longer before emerging.

In the wild Dynastes lay in, and therefore the larvae develop in, well rotted hard wood, in captivity
though they seem to do just a swell on softwoods, in fact some people think the adults are larger if the
larvae are fed on softwood. Whichever the case the wood needs to be well rotted so that you can
flake it between your fingers and you will do much better if you offer the larvae, especially the 3rd
instar a high protein supplement.
 Chalacosoma atlas, photo copyright :- John Moore

Chalacosoma
Several species of Chalacosoma are bred in captivity Chalacosoma mollenkampi, C. atlas and C.
caucasus are all popular species. As with the above genera larvae should be reared individually and
fed a high protein supplement in addition to their rotting wood and leaf mulch diet. The adults need
only be fed banana. The time from egg to adult ranges from 500 to 650 days and appears to be longer
for males than for females. Therefore it is useful to stay in contact with as many other breeders as
possible because your females will be old by the time your males emerge.

Megasoma
You will want about 50 cm in depth of well compressed rotting wood with some pieces of whole
wood in it, mixed with leaf mould in a ratio of 1 part wood to 2 parts leaf mould. These beetles are
far more gentle than any other genera described here and the larvae can generally be reared together,
there are some reports of a small amount of cannibalism, while other people experience none. You
will need about 10 litres of substrate per L3 larvae. These beetles also seem to develop quite well
without a protein supplement; this is reflected in their developmental time of 900 to 1000 days. These
are not beetles for the impatient breeder. The adults are quite happy on a diet of just banana.

Allomyrrhina
There are several species of Allomyrrhina that have been bred in captivity for some time. A.
dichotoma and A. pfeifferi are two popular species that are relatively easy to rear. The adults will
feed on most soft fruits and the larvae seem happy on a diet of almost pure wood. In both species the
larvae can be raised together and providing they are not crowded there is little likely hood of
cannibalism. The eggs hatch in about 3 weeks and the whole life cycle takes less than a year. These
are excellent species for beginners.

Goliathus
These huge beetles are a challenge for every beetle breeder, though success with them is a wonderful
experience. As with Megasoma you will want about 40 to 50 cm in depth of well compressed rotting
wood with some pieces of whole wood in it, mixed with leaf mould in a ratio of 1 part wood to 2
parts leaf mould for the females to lay in. Adult males will fight and it is advisable to keep them
separate. Females can be kept together and if you have more than one pair you can let the males in
with the females on alternative shifts.

The main difference between these beetles and others in this group is the active carnivory of the
larvae. You will need to offer them a high protein supplement as described in the introduction from
practically day one. They will also enjoy other smaller beetle larvae, and the occasional cricket.
Obviously the larvae need to be reared individually. The females tend to take 2 to 3 months from
mating to egg laying, however the eggs take only 1 or 2 weeks to hatch.

A reflection of their high protein diet is the short larval time with a total time from hatching to
pupation of 10 or 11 months, as with the Dynastinae most of this time is spent in the 3rd instar larval
stage. A third instar larvae ready to pupate will way around 100 grams, exceptional specimens have
been recorded at 120 grams.

Chelorrhina
Chelorrhina is a small genus of African beetles with only two known species C. polyphemus and C.
savagei, they are both quite large beetles with horned males. The larvae are highly carnivorous and
cannibalism will occur frequently unless the larvae are reared separately. The adults will feed on
banana and other soft fruit and the larvae on a mixture of leaf mould and rotting wood, a high protein
supplement is essential.

Pachnoda
Pachnoda is an African genus with many species, which though smaller than the above groups is
popular because of their brilliant colouration. They have been kept fairly regularly in cultivation for
several decades now and are relatively easy to rear. The adults will all feed on soft fruit. The larvae
like a mixture of leaf mould and rotting wood in a ratio of 1:1, they will also eat slices of fruit if these
are left on the surface of the compost. Cannibalism is unknown and many larvae can be reared
together in the same cage as the adults. A 15 or 20 litre fish tank will house a small population quite
adequately. P. flaviventris is a commonly available species, though P. ephippiata and P. sinousa are
more attractive if you can find them, the first being predominately yellow and the second
predominately red.

Stephanorrhina
Stephanorrhina guttata is another African flower or fruit beetle, culture is the same as for the
Pachnoda beetles above, and like them it is a relatively easy species to rear.

Web Site Link for greater detail.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/9191/beetle_sites.htm
 Scorpions

Pandinus imperator, female. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Scorpions are the most ancient lineage of terrestrial higher animals (metazoans) known, with fossils
dating back to the Silurian era 400+ millions of years ago. Though diverse in their habitats Scorpions
as a group possess an easily recognised form or 'morphology', everybody knows what a scorpion
looks like.

They are all fascinating, and a number of species make excellent pets because they are relatively easy
to keep. They will live a number of years, for the larger species more than 6 years, and in many cases
can often be kept in small groups unlike other invertebrate carnivores. They are Arachnids, members
of the order Scorpionidae and like all arachnids have 8 legs.

Most of the 1,500 known species come from hot and dry (i.e. arid) environments, though many of the
best species to keep as pets come from tropical rainforests, some species can go for months without
water, and even longer without food, though it is not considerate to stress them like this.

Most of the species which make good pets cannot climb the sides of Glass Tanks or 'Small Pal Pens',
in fact there is a general rule of thumb that says; "If a scorpion can climb the walls of its tank then its
sting is very dangerous".

All species of Scorpions possess a 'sting' in their tail and even in the mildest species this can cause
considerable pain, while a number of species are potentially lethal. I do not recommend that anybody
who is reading this in order to learn about keeping Scorpions keep any but the most gentle species
until they have gained some practical experience, see the list at the end of this document.

Rainforest species need to be kept in a moist habitat at all times, obviously desert species require a
dryer environment, otherwise the basic requirements are the same.
Keep them warm, though some species can tolerate a cooler temperature they all do better at about 25
C. The best method is to house them in a specially heated room, but for most people this is not
possible, another alternative is to keep the cage in an airing cabinet. The most common method is to
use a heat-mat. But beware of over-heating as scorpions, like Cockroaches, will burrow to escape
excess heat, thus cooking themselves if the heat mat is the problem.

A good general estimate is that the pad should rest comfortably under the cage/aquarium so that half
of the bottom of the cage is directly over the pad. This allows a gradient of heat to arise giving the
scorpion some choice over what temperatures they experience. The use of a thermostat can make
things easier but it isn't really necessary for most of the commonly kept species.

All the species of Scorpion commonly kept in captivity are burrowing species, and though some will
dig quite a deep hole in the wild, 5 to 7 cm of a peat-like substrate will be sufficient in captivity.
They will also require a few pieces of flattish wood and or stone to burrow under.

Some species of Scorpion, such as Pandinus imperator (The Emperor) will eat almost anything that
they can hold onto providing it is alive. Crickets are the usual food, though I find woodlice Porcellio
scaber are also quite useful. Obviously smaller specimens and species require smaller prey items.

Some of the larger species have been known to take small mammals and reptiles when full grown.
Though Scorpions can go for a very long time without food it is best to offer them as much as they
will eat. Some people find that Emperors will also eat green peanuts.

Scorpions indulge in a courtship dance and they will need a certain amount of flat space on the floor
of the tank to dance on, this needs to be large enough to allow the two to move around on without too
many obstacles interfering with their dance. The courtship dance, called the 'Promenade a deux',
involves the pair gripping each other with their 'pedipalp chelae' (claws) and walking backward and
forward in tandem until a suitable place is found for the male to deposit his spermatophore. This is a
small bag of sperm which the female will pick up afterwards with her genital opening.

After the female has collected the spermatophore, and is therefore inseminated, the pair part.
Parthenogenesis is known from a few species of Scorpions, but not from those that are generally kept
as pets.

Pregnant females are obviously very fat looking and should be removed from the communal tank and
placed in a separate cage to avoid her experiencing too much disturbance until the young are
independent, disturbed females have been known to eat their own young. In the larger species it takes
6 to 9 months from insemination to birth of the young. All Scorpions are 'viviparous' (i.e. they give
birth to live young). On being born the young escape from the birth sack (in those species which have
one) and then climb up the females back legs onto her back.

The young will stay on the females back for 1 to 2 weeks, after which they will undergo their 1st
moult before leaving this parental protection. The use of triturated water (a harmless form of isotopic
labelling) has shown that the young do acquire some water from their mothers though it is not known
how.
Once down from the females back the young will be ready to fend for themselves and will need to be
separated from the mother in most cases. In some species the female forgets her maternal instincts
easily and will consider these free running young as potential prey. In other species, though not those
normally kept as pets, the females have been known to share their prey with their young.

It is best to return the mother to her normal cage after the young have come down from her back. Most
deaths occur during these 1st two instars, and once into their 3rd instar young scorpions are fairly
easy to rear.

Most species have 5 instars as males and 6 as females. Growth rate is dependent on species, food
intake and temperature; it is not unusual for the large species to take over 3 years to reach maturity.
The number of young is also very variable.

Recommended Species :-
Pandinus imperator = The Emperor :- large rainforest species, easy to obtain Pandinus
cavimanus = Tanzanian Redclaw :- large rainforest species, easy to obtain
Both these species are relatively easy to rear and sting like a wasp.

Heterometrus spinifer = Thai Black :- larger rainforest species, hard to obtain (though there seem
to be plenty in Thailand where I saw them for sale as food - cooked)
Heterometrus javanensis = Javanese Jungle Scorpion :- larger rainforest species, hard to obtain.
Both these species are very easy to rear in groups and are worth the cost if you can get them, they too
sting like a wasp.

Hadrurus hirsutus and Hadrurus arizonensis, both known as Desert Hairy Scorpion, and are desert
species, not that hard to obtain, sting quite painful.

Bothriurus bonnariensis = Chilean Chocolate :- This species is more aggressive than the above and
groups have been known to break down resulting in loss of Scorpions, its sting is more painful, more
like a hornet than a wasp.

In Southern Europe the many species of Euscopius also make very interesting local species to keep.
Although small, less than 3 cm in length, they are harmless and easy to keep. I have found they will
take small pieces of meat, but really prefer a fly that has been stunned by a blow with a fly swat but is
not too mangled. You can keep several individuals in a single container.

Species to Avoid :-

Scorpio maurus is a species sometimes found in pet shops, this is quite a dangerous species in its
own rite, however misidentification by importers sometimes results in young Androctonus australis
being sold under the name of Scorpio maurus. Androctonus australis is a highly venomous species
which is potentially lethal. Not a scorpion for the beginner or the young.

Vaejovis spp. Very painful

Centuroides spp. Potentially lethal.
Despite their potential for causing pain Scorpions are fun pets and the recommended species, if
treated with respect, are not excessively dangerous, I hope you enjoy keeping yours.
 Asian Six Spot Tiger Beetle

Anthia sexguttata. Photo

copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Asian Six Spot Tiger Beetles, sometimes known as Giant Tiger Beetles are, as you might have
guessed, beetles, and as such they are members of the order Coleoptera, family Cicindelidae.

They are reasonably easy to maintain as adults in culture and are a very attractive addition to any
invertebrate display. They are relatively slow moving, survive handling quite well and live for
several years. Being beetles they are holometabolous life cycle, meaning they have a four stage life
cycle of :- egg - larval instars - pupae - adult.

Unfortunately they have relatively demanding larval requirements which makes them difficult to breed
in captivity. All those for sale that I have known about have been live caught on the Indian
subcontinent as adults and imported, although there is a small dedicated group of enthusiasts trying to
breed them in captivity.

The adults can be kept in any sort of cage that has some soil-like substrate and a mesh lid on top with
a heat-mat below if the room is not centrally heated. They are active carnivores, though slow and
clumsy in comparison with many of the other members of this fascinating family. They will live
happily on a diet of crickets, but will also take caterpillars and earthworms (the last only in a cage
where the worms cannot escape.)

They will also eat dog food or tinned meat but only when very hungry. They would probably take to
raw chicken or rabbit as they will scavenge at small animal carcases in the wild, although I have not
tried this personally. They also like to have some water which is best supplied as a small container
buried in the substrate and filled with sponge as well as water. If the cage is fitted out with some
moss covered small logs or branches and an over-head full spectrum light they make a most attractive
display. Several can be kept in a cage together.

The adults will mate and the females lay with reasonable ease in captivity, unfortunately the larvae
like to dig a hole into the ground 60 to 100 cm deep which makes them hard to accommodate and as
of the present I know of nobody who has found a way to circumvent this requirement.

I have included them here because the adults are readily available now, in the UK at least, and it is
better that people know how to care for them than that they buy them and then kill them off. However
it is not good ecologically for a species to be constantly collected from its native habitat, and until
such times as captive bred individuals become easily available I would not recommend them to the
casual enthusiast who is not serious about trying to breed them.
 Silk Worms
Introduction

Silkworms are the caterpillars of the moth Bombyx mori, they have been cultivated for so long that no
wild populations of Bombyx mori exist anymore. B. mori are not the only moths whose caterpillars
spin a cocoon of silk to pupate in, however they produce the best silk, the silk that is most easily
spun, and they dominate the commercial market. Raising silk worms is easy and fun, it is rapidly
becoming more popular, with some people even spinning their own silk.

The Chinese have been spinning silk from the cocoons of B. mori for over 4,000 years. Originally the
caterpillars were collected from mulberry trees as they were nearing pupation and laid out in special
bamboo baskets so that the pupa, and hence the silk would be clean and untarnished. Inevitably the
best cocoons were kept and the eggs carefully put out on the mulberry trees next spring and thus the
domesticated B. mori slowly came into existence.

As civilisation developed in China so the production of silk grew into a national industry. Around
2,640 BC Empress Si-Ling, wife of the famous emperor Huang-Ti stabilised the industry by actively
encouraging the rearing of silk worms, she is credited with inventing the loom which allowed silk to
be easily woven into fabric.

Silk became a major industry in China and the Chinese emperors made so much money out of
exporting silk, which could not be obtained anywhere else, that it was made illegal to attempt to take
silk worms, their eggs or the moths out of China. The punishment for breaking this law was death.
Thus the Chinese were able to maintain a complete monopoly on the silk market for hundreds of
years.

This monopoly was finally broken in about 550 AD when two Persian monks managed to take some
eggs out of China in a hollow bamboo stick. From these few eggs came all the silk worms in the
world that lived outside of China for the next 1200 years. Silk production is still a major world
industry, for example the state of Assam in India produces around 527,000 kg of silk every year,
which represents the work of millions of Silkworms.

Silk worms feed on the leaves of the Mulberry tree and the ideal way to raise them is to have one or
more mulberry trees growing in your back yard. However if Mulberry leaves are not available an
artificial diet is now available commercially.

The caterpillars are not difficult to rear, a lunch box is ideal; I have even raised them in a cardboard
shoe box. The normal way to acquire silk worms is to buy either eggs or cocoons, these are available
from biological supply companies, and often at entomological fairs. The important steps are to feed
the newly hatched larvae on a mixture of chopped and whole mulberry leaves, then whole leaves as
they grow larger, keep the container clean and supply fresh food every day.

If you buy cocoons keep them at room temperature and check every day, the moths will emerge from
the cocoons in their own time and will mate quite happily inside the box. Once the adults have
emerged add a mulberry leaf to the box The adults do not feed but if you are lucky the female/s will
lay their eggs on a mulberry leaf, but if they lay on the sides of the box do not worry this is not a
problem. The females will lay eggs about two days after emerging from the pupa and being mated.

Once the eggs are laid they will take 1 to 3 weeks to hatch. Then they will pass quickly through the
1st, 2nd and 3rd instars which last about 3 days each. The fourth instar lasts for about 6 or 7 days and
they will spend 7 to10 days as a final 5th instar larva. Then they will spin their cocoons in the corner
of the boxes, this takes about 3 days to complete.

Then 3 weeks or so later the next generation of moths will emerge. The whole cycle from eggs to
adult moth takes about 2 to 3 months to complete depending on the temperature.
 Slugs and Snails

Introduction.

Slugs and snails are part of the phylum Mollusca, this means they are related to Clams, Octopus,
Oysters and Squid. For more information on the phylum as a whole I recommend you visit
http://www.earthlife.net/inverts/mollusca.html.

Snails, and their less respectable cousins the slugs are fascinating animals that are generally easy to
keep, many local species are large enough that they can be easily observed and have the benefit of
being easy to obtain and easy to dispose of as you can simply release them again. The Giant African
land snail Achatina fulica is also commonly available at pet shops and relevant shows and makes an
interesting addition to any mini-zoo, as well as a fine pet.

Slugs and snails need to be kept in a relatively humid environment, for this reason a container with a
solid lid with only a few air holes in it is ideal. For giant land snails I would recommend a container
at least 45cm, by 30cm, 20cm. Though this size of cage will serve well for smaller local species,
they can also be kept in smaller containers. For giant land snails the lid needs to be well clipped on
or held down, these animals can be amazingly strong, and will escape if given the chance.

The bottom of the cage needs some sort of substrate, garden soil will do, especially for local species,
though there is no harm in using a sterilised peat substitute providing it is free of pesticides. Two or
three centimetres is fine, this will help maintain humidity, absorb excess moisture and look prettier.

Slugs and snails are generally speaking happy to share your dinner; however it is easier and cheaper
to feed them on the discards from preparing your vegetables with an occasional apple, carrot or
lettuce as a treat. All snails, though not slugs, have a requirement for an additional source of calcium
carbonate in their diets; this can be supplied as chalk, cuttlefish bone or any of the other solid calcium
carbonate supplying agents sold by pet shops. An alternative source of calcium is ordinary
eggshells. The snails use the calcium to build their shells, without it they will eat each others
shells.

Slugs and snails produce a lot of moist faeces, and depending on the size of the cage, and the number
of snails in it, the cage should be cleaned out regularly and new substrate added. The old substrate is
an ideal addition to the garden compost.

Slugs and snails, at least terrestrial ones, are hermaphrodites. This means they are both female and
male at the same time, so that if you have two of the same species you have a pair. Mating and
courtship rituals vary between species and, in slugs especially, usually involves the production of
large amounts of slime and a lot of twining around one another.

Sperm is passed on to the partner by means of an exchange of spermatophores, these are long thin
packages which contain the sperm. These spermatophores break down inside the receivers body and
the sperm swim up the oviduct where they may be kept for a year or more.

Both partners will generally lay clusters of 20 to 50, but some times as many as 100, eggs in a clump.
These eggs can removed and kept in a separate container where their development can be observed,
or they can be left in the cage, however in this case care needs to be taken when cleaning the cage.
For most species the eggs hatch in less than 6 weeks and the young look like miniature adults. They
will feed on the same food as the adults and except in the case of dead individuals, or the few
carnivorous species, there is little chance of cannibalism and the young can be reared with the adults.

Unlike most of the other invertebrates dealt with in this book, which are arthropods, slugs and snails
do not moult. they simply grow little by little. Many species will live to be 5 years or more old and
can produce a huge number of young in that time.

It is interesting to place one or two snails on a flat sheet of glass or Perspex which has a fine coating
of talc on it. There should be something like an inverted Tupperware container place over them to
prevent their escape. The snails movements will be mapped out in the talc. As many slugs and
snails are more active at night this can be a good over-night experiment. A food item can be placed at
the opposite corner of the enclosure and the animals route towards the food will be recorded for you
to study in the morning.
 Solifuges

Galeodes sp. : Greece Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

The Solifugae are a fascinating order of Arachnids which, because they are not well known, have a
wide variety of common names such as Camel-spiders, False Spiders, Sun Scorpions and Wind
Scorpions. They are quite difficult to breed and I would not have included them here except that they
are becoming progressively more popular at invertebrate shows where they are sold to whoever
comes along first.

I have spent a considerable amount of time at shows like these discussing the problems of breeding
them, and the lack of accurate information, with other enthusiasts, and the general consensus of
opinion is that unless you are already an experienced breeder of invertebrates, particularly arachnids,
you are unlikely to have much success.

Remember all the Solifugae you come across at these shows are wild caught, at this date in time there
are no captive bred populations outside of professional research institutes. As far as I know the only
person who has taken a species of Solifugae through an entire life cycle is Fred Punzo at the
university of Tampa, whose excellent book The Biology of Camel Spiders ISBN = 0 7923 8155 6
is a must for anyone seriously attempting to breed these amazing animals. Unfortunately he had his
work published by Kluwer Academic Publishers and not Apollo Press so the book has a ridiculous
92.00 ($180.00) price tag.

However for those who live where Solifuges can be caught wild, or those who just cannot resist the
challenge, here is a synopsis of what is known of the breeding of Solifuges.
Males and females are both relatively short lived with life spans measured in weeks for males and a
few months for females, so, unlike tarantulas and scorpions, you cannot keep your single specimen for
several years until a mate comes along, you need to acquire both sexes in relatively good time, unless
you are lucky enough to catch a gravid female.

Both sexes are extremely aggressive towards anything and everything so great care has to be taken
during the mating. A cage with a mesh / fly screen barrier dividing it in two is necessary, introduce
the female first and after she has adjusted to the cage introduce the male on the other side of the cage.
Keep both of them well fed. The barrier should be left in place until the male and female are
observed touching pedipalps through the mesh for several minutes.

When this occurs the barrier should be removed. The pair should not be left alone, apart from the fact
that you will miss a unique opportunity to observe mating behaviour, if something goes wrong you
will quickly have at least one damaged if not two damaged or dead Solifuges. However if after the
female has started showing signs of receptivity she also shows signs of aggression, do not be too
hastily concerned unless she actually starts to attack the male. Male Solifuges know what they are
dealing with.

The male will stroke the female with his pedipalps and as long as he is holding his ground all should
be OK. This stroking behaviour relaxes the female, in species from Africa and Asia she will tend to
become completely torpid and collapse, New-world species are not quite so dramatic. Once the
female is completely relaxed the male will pick her up with his chelicerae and mate with her.

In most species sperm transfer involves the male depositing a spermatophore on the ground and then
charging his pedipalps with sperm and using them to inseminate the female. However in the
Eremobatidae sperm transfer occurs directly from the males genitalia to the females. As soon as the
male is finished he will be happy enough to leave before the female regains her senses, so remove
him from the cage.

The female will lay a cluster of eggs in one to two weeks depending on species and the temperature
you are keeping her at. The egg mass should be removed immediately or else she is likely to eat it.
The egg cluster will contain between 5 and 200 eggs depending on species and the size and health of
the female, the larger species tend to lay more eggs.

There is considerable variation in the recorded times for the development of the eggs ranging from 2
to 66 days. Very little information is currently available on most species and anybody who succeeds
in breeding African or Asian species should record accurately every step of the way.

The eggs hatch into a non feeding post-embryo that will moult again into a first instar nymph in a few
days. First instar nymphs are also non-feeding as their chelicerae are not fully developed yet. The
nymphs should be separated out into individual containers at this stage because after they moult into
2nd instar nymphs they will eat anything they can get hold of. The nymphs will go through a total of
something like 8 instars.

The nymphs appear to be exceedingly temperamental concerning the environmental variables

effecting them and when Fred Punzo succeeded in raising nymphs of Eremobates marathoni to
maturity he did so using a controlled environment chamber with a temperature range of 21 to 26 C, a
relative humidity of 70% and a 12 hours on 12 hours off light regime.

Unlike the adults the nymphs do not burrow, and they will need some bark or similar object to hide
under.

The nymphs have voracious appetites, and in common with some of their relatives they will eat
themselves silly if they get the chance, this is a useful habit in the desert where food resources can be
very variable, however in captivity they will survive on a more regular and restricted diet. However
they can still safely consume up to 4 times their body weight in prey per week so it is worth keeping
them well fed.

As with all arachnid cultures the containers need to be kept clean and free of mould and fungi,
especially with the younger nymphs.

There is still room for considerable experimentation within this basic pattern and anybody seriously
trying to raise Solifuges will need to be prepared to experiment and to adjust their future efforts as a
result of their learning. They will also have to be prepared for failure and the death of specimens as
this will be inevitable.

Information and discussions of Solifugae breeding successes will be welcome on The arachnid
mailing list. To subscribe to the list, send a Email to with no title and the message
subscribe arachnid "Jane Doe" jdoe@anyplace.edu
where Jane Doe is your real name and jdoe@anyplace.edu is your e-mail address. The last line of
your message should contain the single word end. So your message should look like this.
 Other Spiders

Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Apart from the Mygalomorphae, i.e. Tarantulas, there are about 40,000 species of spider in the world,
all of which are fascinating and fun to study. Also, because most of them have restricted habitat
requirements, they are, in general, easier to keep than insects, the main difference being that most
species, but not all, need to be kept in individually separate containers.

The most important thing to remember about keeping spiders you have caught in the wild in captivity
is that most spiders in captivity die from dehydration; this is because in the wild they have a variety
of sources of moisture, but unless you supply them with some they have none in captivity. Also in
nature the humidity normally increases throughout the night when most spiders are active, however
human air-conditioned homes are unusually dry. However excess humidity can kill easily so it is
important that while water be available, the habitat should generally not be too damp, airflow is very
important.

Keeping spiders as pets is a lot of fun especially when those spiders are ones you have captured
yourself. Apart from spiders that have a specialised habitat requirements such as the Water Spider
Argyroneta aquatica most spiders can be kept in any container that will keep them contained,
remembering that hunting species need room to hunt and web spinning species need room to spin a
web and that there is a need for light to get in. Burrow living species are also much happier in a
burrow, even if this means you cannot see much of them.

A small or medium sized fish tank with a mesh lid, see Part 1, makes an excellent spider home for
medium sized species, large species such as Argiope ssp. need larger cages to allow them to spin
their webs. Many smaller species are happy in smaller containers and can be kept in 3 litre sweet
jars, or 2 or 3 litre drink bottles, ones with clear plastic sides. If tall thin containers like these are
used it is advisable to cut a section away low down on the container and glue some mesh or fly-
screen over the space and to have a piece of mesh over the top held on with an elastic band. This
ensures a through flow of air and reduces the chances of fungi attacking your pet. A silicate glue such
as Acetoxy will hold the mesh to the plastic and is easy to apply, though it is best to use it outside
because of the fumes. Also it is best not to put anything living in the cage for a day or so.

The cage should be supplied with habitat enhancers such as some soil in the bottom, a few small
stones, and pieces of bark and some climbing twigs. Web making species will use these to anchor
their webs and other species will use them to hunt prey from. As I said above, some spiders need to
drink, so you need to supply a little water now and then, this depends on where your spider normally
lives. Obviously species that live in bogs will need a more humid environment than those that live in
bushes on the edge of the plains.

Water can be added in a number of ways, by dribbling some water down one side of the cage or down
one of the twigs every evening, by misting the walls with a plant water sprayer, be careful not to make
the sides two wet or you may trap either your spider, or the flies you feed it, against the sides with the
water, or you may simply keep a water dish in the cage, this is easy in a fish tank but not in a jar. The
water dish can be any small container that holds water, it is best to fill it with oasis or some sponge
first as this will prevent things drowning in it.

All spiders are carnivores, and if you are going to keep them for more than a few days you will have
to feed them, the prey items should be alive when introduced to the spiders cage and smaller than the
spider. Most spiders can take prey items as large as themselves, and some such as Crab spiders
Thomisidae and Jumping spiders Salticidae can handle prey larger than themselves.

Argiope bruennichi, photographed in the wild in Greece.

An easy and spectacular species to breed.
Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Prey choice and handling make wonderful topics of study for those interested in spider behaviour.
Spiders can live quite a long time without food if necessary and most species are happy with one or
two prey items per week, and will survive on less. Spiders that reach sexual maturity will want to
mate. Adult males can easily be recognised because of their enlarged pedipalps which they use to
transfer the sperm to the female. Males often lose their interest in food once they reach maturity.

Most spiders eat only living or freshly killed food, however some species will feed on pieces of raw
meat. Spiders can taste their food and some items are rejected because of taste. Unlike you an me
however spiders taste their food with their tarsi using chemosensitive hairs. Thus if you keep spiders
you will notice that some spiders will not eat certain true bugs (Hemipterans) and ticks (Acari) and
even woodlice or rollypollies (Isoptera), other species do not like moths because of all the scales
they have on their bodies.

Different species of spider have different ideas about what is good to eat and what isn't. For instance
while many spiders won't eat woodlice, the house spiders in the genera Tegenaria will, and spiders
in the genera Dysdera specialise in eating them, preferring them to other foods. You can have fun
learning about your spiders preferences by offering him or her different food items every week.

If you have males and females of the same species you can experiment with breeding, if not it is best
to let the unmatched adults go. The simplest method to initiate breeding is to introduce the male into
the females cage just after the female has had a couple of good meals.

There is an astonishingly huge degree of variety in the ways that male spiders go about courting their
aggressive mates and the reproductive behaviour of spiders is a large, varied and fascinating study.
The best you can do is read up whatever you can and watch carefully, though it may take days or even
weeks for the action to get warm. In a few species the male does get eaten by the female but this is
the exception rather than the rule.

My favourite method of keeping spiders is just to share my house and garden with them, this way I do
not have to do a lot to care for them and they are always there for me to observe. Old cobwebs can
be cleared away without ruining the spiders life providing care is taken not to physically hurt the
spider in the process. You may, or may not, be surprised to learn that some spiders are quite happy
to eat other spiders, even other spiders of their own species, so the population in your house will
always be changing.

You can find a lot more information on spiders at my web site

http://www.earthlife.net/chelicerata/anindex.html .

References

Choe, J.C. and Crespi B.J. (1997) The Evolution of Social Behaviour in Insects and
Arachnids. Cambridge Uni Press, Cambridge UK.
 Choe, J.C. and Crespi B.J. (1997) The Evolution of Mating Systems in Insects and
Arachnids. Cambridge Uni Press, Cambridge UK.

Crompton, J. (????) The Spider, Scientific Book Club, London. Out of Print

Foelix, R. F. (1996) Biology of Spiders (2nd Ed.) Oxford Uni Press, Oxford UK.

Hilyard, P. (1994) The Book of the Spider, Hutchinson London.

 Stick-Insects

Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Stick-Insects are members of the insect order Phasmida, or Phasmatodea. They are hemimetabolous
insects so the young look just like miniature adults without wings and they have no pupal stage in their
life cycle. There are nearly 3,000 species of Stick-Insect in the world all of which feed exclusively
on vegetation; they are one of the most popular forms of insect pets.

For more information on the order Phasmida see my web site at

http://www.earthlife.net/insects/phasmida.html
In general several of the more common species of Stick-Insect can be kept together though if you are
breeding many difficult species it pays to use separate cages to create individual environments.

Most Sticks come from tropical or sub-tropical environments and are happiest between 25 C and 30
C, although the common Laboratory or Indian Stick-Insect Carausius morosus and some of its
relatives are happy at normal home temperatures of about 20 C.

Heating is best achieved by maintaining a whole room at the desired temperature, if this is not
possible an electric light bulb can be used over small cages. It is important to make sure the Stick-
Insects cannot reach the light bulb as they will fry themselves on it. A red bulb should be used during
the hours of darkness as this disturbs the Sticks far less because they do not see in the red part of the
spectrum.
Because most Stick-Insects are long thin animals which hang down from their food plants to shed
their skins (moult) it is most important that the cage have sufficient height to allow them to moult
safely. As a general rule the cage should be at least three times as high as the adult length (including
legs) of the largest species of Stick-Insects to be kept in it.

I have kept stick-insects in a wide variety of cages. For Peruvian Fern Eating Stick-Insects
Oreophotes peruanus I recommend using a largish (60cm plus) fish tank with a good mesh lid and a
fish tank light, this species needs high humidity and warmth. It also has a restricted diet and only
feeds on ferns (it also shows preferences for certain species of ferns).

I preferred to keep a supply of potted local ferns which I used in rotation in the tank, being careful to
shake any eggs laid in the fern and its pot back into the tank. However cut fern will last for over a
week if stood in a pot of water filled with oasis, which is much longer than bramble sometimes.

Other than this I have had best success with either custom built cages designed for particular species
or general cages. I recommend two sorts of general cage. The first is a cage based on a fish tank but
with a mesh section above the tank, the mesh section is normally about twice as high as the glass
section and the whole thing is held together in a wooden frame.

The second sort of cage is just a simple rectangular prism wooden frame with some or all the sides of
mesh and a door at the front. Sides that are not mesh can be Perspex or wood, the roof should be
mesh and the base can either be floor-board type wood or Perspex. Otherwise you can make the cage
without a bottom and then it can be stood in some sort of container. Rectangular seed tray bases from
plant nurseries are good for this as are the Perspex lids from old record players.

It is also useful to have it so designed that you can easily insert and remove the food plant material
whenever it is required, taking into consideration that this will mostly be brambles (i.e. spiny Rubus
spp.).

Not all stick-insects share a common need for humidity, some species such as Carausius morosus
will be happy to live in a fairly open cage whereas others such as Epidares nolimetangere will
require an almost, if not totally, enclosed cage with around 80% relative humidity.

Regardless of this all Stick Insects need water and it is a good policy to thoroughly mist the inside of
the cage including all the food plant material each evening before you go to bed or before lights out.

Some Stick-Insects such as Haaniella spp. need open water in a low bowl to drink, don't be to
concerned if they leave their heads under water for long periods of time, remember that insects breath
through their thoracic and abdominal spiracles not through their mouths like us. Note also that in
some places tap water can harm some species so it doesn't hurt to use either rain water or to let the
tap water stand for a day or two.

Almost all Stick-Insects eat the leaves of bramble/blackberry and its relatives of the genus Rubus and
many, such as the Indian or Laboratory Stick-Insect C. morosus, the Australian or Giant Spiny Stick-
Insect Extatosoma tiaratum, the Thorn Legged Stick-Insect Eurycantha calcarata, the Small Spiny
Stick-Insect Araeton assperrimus and the Jungle Nymph Heteropteyx dilatata will also enjoy plants
like Oak Quercus spp. and Hawthorn Crateagus monogyna.

It is important to make sure that your sticks always have plenty of fresh food, and it is often wise to
collect it from sites not to close to major road ways to avoid the poisoning effects of various
vehicular pollutants, if this is unavoidable then the plant material should be washed before being
offered to the Stick-insects.

Care needs to be taken when changing the food plants which should be carefully removed and placed
aside. The new food should be arranged in the tank, make it spread out a bit and look good, dont just
plonk it in. Finally the stick-insects should be returned carefully to the cage, often the best way to do
this is to cut the portions of old food plant with the stick-insects on it away and place these bits in
among the new vegetation, the sticks will crawl off fairly quickly in most cases and the old bits and
pieces can then be removed.

One of the great joys for children and adults in relationship to keeping stick insects is that they can be
handled fairly easily. However care does need to be taken in handling stick insects at all times,
remember they are living creatures just like you and me and their long thin body plan makes them
easily damaged. Some species such as the Indian or Laboratory Stick-Insect C. morosus and the
Australian or Giant Spiny Stick-Insect E. tiaratum are relatively sturdy and these should be used
when allowing younger children or people who could be frightened to handle the Sticks.

Note that some species such as Pink Wings Sipyloidea sipylus tend to lose their legs very easily. It
should also be noted that some species such as the Australian or Giant Spiny Stick-Insect E. tiaratum,
the Jungle Nymph H. dilatata and particularly the Thorn Legged Stick-Insect E. calcarata can and
will pinch (with their thorny limbs) and bite if they are not used to being handled, while other species
such as the American Walking Stick Anisomorpha bupestroides and to a lesser extent Pink Wings S.
sipylus have a defensive chemical spray which in the case of American Walking Stick A.
bupestroides can cause temporary blindness and considerable pain even to an adult human.

In general it is best to use intermediate nymphs for handling experiments with inexperienced people.
It is also a good idea to accustom insects to being handled, most stick insects are wary at first but if
they are handled regularly then they adapt to it quickly and become very well behaved.

A number of species of stick-insect are parthenogenetic (i.e. the females lay unfertilised eggs which
hatch into females which will also lay unfertilised eggs etc.) the most commonly encountered
parthenogenetic species is C. morosus

The majority of stick-insect species go in for a more normal male/female reproductive system. All
stick insects lay eggs, some just drop them onto the ground, some sick them under tree bark or into
crevices and some bury them in the ground. If you keep the burying species such as the Small Spiny
Stick-Insect A. assperrimus, the Thorn Legged Stick-Insect E. calcarata or the Untouchable Stick-
Insect E. nolimetangere you will need to ensure a container of damp peat, about 5 cm deep in the
bottom of the cage once the females are adult. Or else raise the species in a cage with a 5 cm later
leaf mould or compost in the bottom of the cage.

Stick-Insect eggs can take from between 2 months and 18 months to hatch depending on species, in
general the larger species are the ones which take longest time, though not always.

You can either not bother cleaning out the cage floor and let the sticks hatch as they want, in this case
it is useful to keep some common Collembola or Woodlice in the cage to help keep down the fungus,
Collembola are better as there is less chance of them eating the occasional egg. The biggest problem
with not cleaning out the base of the cage is that it becomes compost, with its own distinctive smell;
you also need to have some sort of water proof base to the cage or it will rot away.

The other option is to collect the eggs each time you clean the cage and keep them in separate
containers until they hatch. In this case the eggs of the burying species will need to be gently reburied
about 1 cm deep, and the rest will need to be kept on some absorbent material such as sand. All of
them will need to be kept in a warm place and spraying with moisture occasionally will help, a
careful/daily watch should be kept for moulds and attacked ova/eggs removed cleaned and then kept
in a separate container.

Newly hatched young should be moved carefully into a feeding/living cage, using an artists brush or
a piece of twig (by letting the young stick-insect climb onto, and then off from, it).

The world of stick-insect enthusiasts is well catered to and you will find your enjoyment of stick-
insects is increased by joining either or both the
Phasmid Study Group and The Stick List.

The Phasmid Study Group has been around for years and contains many people with a real dedication
to Phasmids, to find out more or to enquire about joining visit their website.
http://www.stickinsect.org.uk/

Mailing Lists
Stick-Insect Mailing List for those interested in care and breeding of stick insects (Phasmida). To
subscribe, send a blank message to add.sticks@exotics.net

References
P. D. Brock, (1992) Rearing and Studying Stick and Leaf-Insects AES Publications,
England
P. D. Brock, (1999) The Amazing World of Stick and Leaf Insects AES Publications,
England
Phasma gigas. Photo copyright :- Ian Abercrombie 2005
 Tarantulas

Theraphosa blondi Photo copyright :- Ian Abercrombie

Introduction

Tarantulas are members of the Arthropod class Arachnida, this class contains several orders, one of
which, the Aranaea, contains all the animals properly called spiders. The order Aranaea has three
major divisions called suborders, the Mesothelae, the Mygalomorphae and the Araneomorphae. The
large spiders commonly called tarantulas belong to the sub order Mygalomorphae.

The Mygalomorphae contains more than 2,200 species of spider, about 800 of which are normally
considered to be tarantulas. The term Tarantula is not a proper taxonomic category, though most
people will know what you mean when you use the word.

As with all pets, invertebrates included, it is important to make sure you have the correct equipment
to house and care for your tarantula before you buy it. These days you can very often buy your
tarantula complete with housing in pet shops. However this is not always the case and many
tarantulas have died in the first few days because their new owner hasn't prepared a suitable home for
them.

You need to think about what sized animal you are buying. Most small tarantulas come in containers
that they can be kept in for some weeks. Personally I prefer buying tarantulas as young spiderlings,
this way you have all the pleasure of watching your spider grow, you can collect the skins as it
moults, and if you buy a text telling you how, set the skins to look almost life like, giving a series of
permanent images of your pet.
Pet shops will sell suitable tanks in glass or plastic and the size should not be less than about 25cm
by 15cm by 15cm high for a medium sized tarantula. If you wish you can to create a tank that tries to
provide the spiders natural habitat with leaf litter, logs or bark etc. Like many arachnids tarantulas
are not overly social animals and if you house them well you must be prepared for the fact that they
will hide away much of the time. This should not be a problem, there will still be times when you
can observe them, and if you design the tank well you will be able to check up on them even when
they are in a burrow. A bare unadorned cage will keep your tarantula alive, but not necessarily sane
and the behaviour you observe will not be natural.

Different species of tarantula live different lives, some species are primarily arboreal (live in trees),
some are borrowers, whatever species you keep you will need to adapt the basic care instructions
given here to the species in question. Thus an arboreal species needs to be kept in a cage that is taller
than it is wide with wood to climb on and a shallow substrate, whereas a burrowing species will
need a cage that is wider than it is high with a good depth, up to 10 cm depending on the size of the
animal, of leaf mould or friable compost to burrow in.

Most species like a little, to a lot, of humidity and keeping the substrate damp will supply this.
Whatever you use as a substrate, if you buy it commercially make sure it is free of pesticides etc., it is
best to sterilise it anyway. A few minutes in a microwave will do this but be sure to remove any
stones first, and to stay and watch, other people in your home will not appreciate your setting the
microwave on fire and these items are combustible, common sense is needed as usual. You can
sterilise bark and wood in a regular oven. Set the oven to 200 degrees F. and leave the items in the
oven for 40 minutes to an hour. Wood and bark should not spontaneously combust at this temperature.

A temperature of 21 C-24 C is required for most of the tarantulas that you should buy as a beginner. If
you have a centrally heated room which stays at that temperature all the time then you won't need
extra heating during the winter, but you may need some between spring and autumn when the heating is
switched off.

A good pet shop that sells reptiles and spiders will have a variety of thermostatically controlled
heating devices including underground cables, heating mats and hot rocks. Tell them the size and type
of tank that you are using and they should be able to recommend a suitable heater for you. Personally
I have found heat-mats, with the cage half on and half off the cage work fine, though you may not
need this precaution if you are using a thermostatically controlled device. Red-bulbs are not
generally recommended for tarantulas.

You will need a fairly good lid on the cage, tarantulas, even the ground dwelling species can climb
well and they are often stronger than they look. Given a chance they will escape, especially adult
males who are pre-programmed to roam. If you keep a whole room heated this is not such a bad
problem, and I have recovered tarantulas up to 3 months after they escaped, granted the external walls
were not well damp proofed so the room was not too dry, further more tarantulas were not the only
things to escape so they had something to eat.

The humidity in the tank should not be less than 50-60% and you should buy a little humidity gauge to
stick on the inside of your tank. If the humidity drops below 50% your tarantula may die during its
next moult.
Crickets and locusts are usually available from pet shops that sell tarantulas and reptiles and you can
try other livestock which you catch yourself, such as moths and caterpillars. Some will even eat
earthworms. A tarantula of about 3-4 cm in body length will eat 8-10 crickets each week although it
will survive on less.

You can in an emergency also feed your tarantula on cubes of beef heart though this will be lacking
nutrients if it is the sole diet. Like most arachnids tarantulas seem happier with a bit of variety in
their diet. The prey items you feed your tarantula should be quite a bit smaller than the tarantula.

Small spiderlings can be fed on large aphids, flightless fruit flies and newly hatched crickets (called
pinheads in pet shops). As your spider moults and grows so the size of the prey it can eat will
increase.

Water is vital to your tarantula. It can survive for weeks without food but quickly die without water.
A small container such as a coffee jar lid half-filled with oasis and water will provide drinking water
for larger specimens and help keep the humidity up.

As your tarantula grows it will regularly moult (shed its skin), 2-3 times a year in the case of the half
grown individual. Signs of an approaching moult are darkening of the colour and a lack of interest in
food. Each time it moults it will spin itself a special moulting web to moult on. When feeding stops,
remove any live food in case they irritate the spider, or worse, nibble it while it is helpless during the
moult.

Normally the spider will turn on its back to moult and lie still in that position for several hours. Do
not disturb it in any way at this time as this may prove fatal. Begin feeding it again about 4-5 days
after it has moulted when its new skin has hardened.

Tarantulas like many other spiders, are strange animals in that males live much shorter lives than the
females. In Chilean Rose tarantulas for instance mature males will live for about 2 years while
mature females will live for up to 15 years. In some species of tarantula the females can live for up
to 25 years or longer so it is worth taking this into consideration when choosing whether or not to
keep a tarantula, they are pets for life even more so than cats and dogs.

If you decide to keep more than one tarantula you may in time want to try breeding them. You really
should not try this until you are quite familiar with your spider. Spiders, with few exceptions are
raised individually, which is how they live in the wild. So if you wish to breed them you will need to
bring them together, introduce the male into the females cage and not the other way around.

Before you bring them together make sure they both are well fed, you cant over feed a tarantula it
will not eat what it doesnt want, then remove any live food. Once you have introduced the male
there is little you can do except watch in fascination. After the mating you should remove the male if
he is still alive, which he may well be, especially with species like the Chilean Rose.

Sometime later the female will want to spin a special web to hold the eggs, if she is a burrowing
species she will want to do this at the bottom of a burrow. Therefore it is best if you have her housed
so that she can dig a burrow, having a larger cage for gravid females does not hurt.

She will lay the eggs, wrap them up and then guard them. Once the spiderlings have hatched you will
need loads of small containers, with leaf mould to house them. You will also need a ready supply of
fruit fly or pinhead crickets, be ready.

Handling your tarantula is something many people desire to do, this is all right in small amounts but
tarantulas are not really happy on your hands because your flesh damps out the vibrations they use to
sense the world.

Nevertheless handling is fun, although it needs to be done carefully. First off you should know that if
you drop a ground dwelling species and it hits the floor it will most likely die. Secondly like all
animals your spider will be sensitive to your emotional state to some extent, it will detect your fear
and this will disturb it. If you are unsure work first with someone who knows what they are doing,
this way you will learn to generate the calm atmosphere that makes handling work.

If you buy your spider as a spiderling, then handling is easier as you can get to know each other as it
grows, then by the time it is an adult it will be as confident of you and of being handled as you are of
it. Having said this, different tarantula species, and even different individuals within a species, have
different temperaments, and some spiders just handle better than others. Some species are naturally
more aggressive and should never be handled.

Besides the danger to the spider, there is also the possibility that the spider may bite, or flick
urticating hairs. Spiders will bite, some more readily than others, and, although no-one has ever been
recorded as dying from a tarantula bite, if you are bitten you should consult a doctor. Furthermore
just because you have been bittern a couple of times and it didnt hurt at all does not mean you are
safe.

Biting is a twofold process involving puncturing your skin with the fangs, and then injecting venom,
tarantulas (and snakes) will bite without injecting venom, this is called a dry bite.

Urticating hairs are hairs on the abdomen of some species, they are barbed and the spider can flick
them of his abdomen with his legs, if they get into your eyes you will need to seek medical advice
also. It is best not to get your face too close to your spider.

Never release tarantulas into the wild, with the electronic resources available these days you can
always find someone to take them off your hands. By releasing them into the wild you are either
sending them to an unpleasant death, or initiating another biodiversity crisis. The USA in particular
already has enough introduced tarantulas running wild.

There are quite a few species of tarantulas available commercially these days; between them they
offer a range of difficulty in rearing and breeding.
Grammostela rosea. Photo Copyright :- G. Ramel

For your first tarantula you don't want an aggressive, difficult to keep, or very expensive species.
The following are all easy to keep and are therefore recommended.

If you go to a pet shop, before you buy have a good look at the tarantula. If it has no water, then it is
not well cared for, if it seems lethargic it is also quite possible maltreated and dying. In either case I
would leave the shop and look elsewhere. A general piece of advice is that breeders are better to
buy from than mere sellers.

Chilean Rose Grammostola rosea, or G. spatulatus, or G. cala

Entre Rios Grammostola inheringii
Curly Haired Brachypelina albopilosa
Red Rump Brachypelina vagans
White collared Pterinopelma saltator
References
W. J. Baerg, (1977) The Tarantula. Fitzgerald Publishing, London

K. Hancock and J. Hancock, (1993) Sex Determination Of Immature Theraphosid Spiders

From Their Cast Skins

K. Hancock and J. Hancock, (1993). Simply Tarantulas: A Guide for the Beginner

K. Hancock and J. Hancock, (1993). Tarantulas: Keeping and Breeding Arachnids in

Captivity

A. M. Smith, (1995?) Tarantula Spiders Tarantulas of USA and Mexico. Fitzgerald

Publishing, London

Web Sites
The British Tarantula Society http://www.thebts.co.uk/
The American Tarantula Society http://www.atshq.org/
The Tarantulas Burrow http://www.arachnophiliac.com/burrow/home.htm

Mailing lists
Arachnid:- The arachnid mailing list. To subscribe, send the message
subscribe arachnid "Jane Doe" jdoe@anyplace.edu
To MAJORDOMO@BGA.COM .
Where Jane Doe is your real name and jdoe@anyplace.edu is your real e-mail address.
The subject line should be blank.
The last line of your message should contain the single word end.

http://www.realtime.net/~welbon/spiders.html
 Confused Flour Beetles
Introduction

Confused flour beetles, or Tribolium confusum are small reddish brown beetles that are about as
easy to keep as any animal alive. They are useful mostly in the classroom for ecologically based
experiments on population growth, and environmental effects. Being beetles they are holometabolous
meaning they have a four stage life cycle of :- egg - larval instars - pupae - adult.

The beetles can be kept in a largish jar 75% filled with ordinary flour or cornmeal. No moisture or
other foods are needed, some very fine air holes in the lid will be necessary but otherwise this is it.
It is useful to maintain several cultures so that in case of disease attacking one culture the other/s will
remain. At room temperature the beetles go through a life cycle, from egg to adult, involving 6 to 11
larval instars in about two months.

The beetles give off an odour when disturbed so it is best to collect them with tweezers or a
moistened paint brush rather than with a pooter, see the introductory section for instructions on
making a pooter.

Generation time can be recorded by collecting pupae and separating them out. Then all the beetles
that emerge on a given day can be used in a fresh culture, you should try to observe the first arrival of
new pupae, and then the date when these emerge.

Cultures maintained at different temperatures, or with different foods, i.e. whole meal flour vs. white
flour, or wheat flour vs. cornmeal will show different generation times.
 Whip Scorpions

Photo copyright :- Ian Abercrombie 2005

Introduction

Whip Scorpions, or Uropygi are an order of Arachnids that are slowly becoming more popular with
amateur enthusiasts. They look like their cousins the Scorpions, except that they have a long slender
tail, it is this 'caudal appendage' which gives the group its common name of Whip Scorpions.

Like the Amblypygi they are often erroneously considered to be extremely poisonous and dangerous
(poisonous actually means it will poison you if taken into your body, like a fungi you eat, this is a
common misuse of the English language, animals such as spiders, snakes and wasps are actually
venomous). In fact although they may seem unusual at first view they are rather fascinating animals
and unlike spiders are not venomous at all.

When disturbed however they can discharge a spray from glands at the back end of their body near the
base of the tail or whip. This spray can consist of as much as 85% acetic acid, which makes it quite
corrosive, very much stronger than vinegar, and it is therefore not a good idea to get your eyes too
close to the animal.

This spray causes them to smell of vinegar and so they are also known as Vinegaroons or
Vinergarones in the USA and the west Indies while in Taiwan Thelyphonus skimkewitchii is known
as 'Mengpon-menn' or the 'Stinking Scorpion'.

They are all tropical or subtropical in distribution. The largest and most commonly kept species being
found in the genus Mastigoproctus which occurs only in America, other genera are Hypoctonus in
Malaya, Typopeltus in China and Japan, and Thelyphonus in various parts of the Indo-pacific region.

Whip scorpions are highly nocturnal and do not put on much of a display if kept in a healthy manner,
however for the arachnid enthusiast they are a fascinating group. They should be housed individually
as they quite aggressive to one another.

A glass fish tank is useful, but a custom made tarantula tank is much better. The dimensions of the
cage depend on the size of the animal, as a general guide it should 3 or more times as wide as the
animals natural standing leg span and several times as tall as the animal is long.

The back wall of the cage should be furnished with flat tree bark or limestone. The cage should have
8 cm to10 cm of peat substitute or sterilised soil in the bottom, if you buy compost make sure there
are no acaricides, pesticides or herbicides in it. A sandy loam soil is best.

Soil can be sterilised in a microwave in a few minutes, providing it is free of rocks that might contain
moisture and explode on heating, or in an ordinary oven for a few hours. The soil should then be
rewetted so that it is thoroughly damp but not wet. The soil should be kept slightly damp to maintain
humidity and they should be offered water in the usual sponge or oasis filled container sunk into the
substrate.

Uropygids will burrow, which means a lot of the time they will not be visible, or else they will hide
under rocks or bark which should be supplied for them. Uropygids are solitary animals and it is
advised to raise them one per container.

Uropygids are aggressive carnivores, holding and crushing their prey in their powerful chelicerae.
Some species will feed in the open, while others such as Mastigoproctus giganteus will take its prey
back to its burrow to devour. Both adult males and females should be well fed before they are
introduced to each other for mating. The unmated female should be introduced to the males cage and
placed nearby him

The mating cage should have a hard or stone substrate, not small pebbles. Mating may take place on a
horizontal or vertical surface depending on the species. Mating involves a prolonged courtship of
several hours which begins with the male holding the females antenniform forelegs in his pedipalps
with their tips in his chelicerae.

The pair may move backwards and forwards together. The male eventually turns around, still holding
the females antenniform forelegs so that both animals are facing the same direction, the male in front
of the female. The end of the males abdomen will be above the females head and she will clasp his
opisthosoma with her chelicerae.

They will remain in this position for several hours while the male generates and deposits a
spermatophore. Eventually the male will walk forward until the females gonopore is above the
spermatophore. The female then lowers her body onto the spermatophore and both animals make a
short backwards movement which causes the sperm package to become lodged in the females
receptacula semmis.
In the genus Thelyphonus the mating is now complete. In other genera such as Mastigoproctus the
male turns after releasing the females antenniform legs and grasps her from above in a sort of bear
hug. His chelicerae reach around under her body and he presses the spermatophore into her gonopore
thus facilitating sperm transfer, the pair may remain in this position for some time.

In all species so far studied a female may be inseminated several times and in the genus
Thelyphonellus one courtship and mating episode normally results in the transfer of two
spermatophores. The female should be returned to her cage when no further signs of mating are
forthcoming.

The pregnant female digs a special burrow with a larger area at the end. When the eggs are laid they
are held inside a special thin membrane that keeps them close to the females body. It is most
important that an adequate and stable humidity is maintained during this time.

During incubation the female remains in the end of her burrow without food guarding the eggs. When
the eggs hatch they emerge as praenymphs which are white and do not resemble adult whip scorpions
very much at all, they climb onto their mothers back and attach themselves there with special
suckers.

After a while they moult and the nymph that emerges looks like a miniature Whip Scorpion. They
soon leave their mothers body and should be housed separately as soon as they leave her. Housing is
the same as for the adults, although smaller containers are more suitable.

Although there are several reports of females dying after the young have left this is not the general
case and one female may produce several broods of young after successive matings. The young are
slow growing and go through three moults in about three years before they reach maturity.

The young should be fed on suitably small insects such as crickets or flightless fruit flies, the size of
the prey items being increased as they grow.

References

Weygoldt, P. (1988). Sperm transfer and spermatophore morphology in the whip

scorpion Thelyphonus linganus (Arachnida: Uropygi: Thelyphonidae). J. Zool., London. 215, 189-
196.

I am grateful to Peter Weygoldt of the Biologisches Institut 1 (Zoologie) der Albert-Ludwigs-

Universitt for his comments and assistance with this section.
 Wax Moths

Poor wax moth, hated all your days

by apiarists in many ways.
God, who in wisdom made the bee,
in wisdom also hath made thee.

Introduction

Wax moths, scientifically known as Galleria mellonella are a member of the Lepidopteran family
Pyralidae. They are easy to rear in culture and are a useful addition to a schools biology teaching
resources; the larvae, which grow to about 2 cm in length can be used as a food source for
carnivorous invertebrates and vertebrates as well as bait for freshwater fishing. The adults can also
be used as food for creatures like Lizards and Frogs. However remember that they are a very serious
pest of Honey Bee nests so you should never release them into the wild.

The larvae will happily chew through both wood and plastic, so it is advisable to keep cultures in
largish glass jars. Also because you need to be able to get a hand into the culture these jars should
have a wide mouth.

A fish tank with a well sealed glass lid is excellent, though some provision for air flow into and out
of the container is necessary. This can be achieved if the cover is a few centimetres short of the
length of the tank and some, preferably metal based, fly-mesh is glued across the gap so that it forms a
good seal with the lid. Any silicate fish tank glue can be used for this. You can then divide the cage
into a feeding section and a pupating section. The fly mesh will also keep out Fruit Flies and other
unwanted insects which will be attracted to the smell of the larvaes food.

The pupating section should contain rolls of corrugated cardboard. The larvae will burrow into these
to pupate and pupa can then be collected by removing a roll. In time these rolls will become pretty
tatty and should be replaced. The larvae go through 7 instars between egg and pupa. Cultures can be
maintained in a perpetual cycle as the adults will happily mate and lay inside the cage.

In the wild they feed on the wax, honey and larvae of honey bees, however if you are going to keep
them in captivity a mixture of 7 parts dried dog food with 2 parts of honey and one of water will make
a excellent and cheap substitute. If this is allowed to sit for a day it should end up having a fairly
solid consistency. Otherwise any fairly solid mix of cereal and honey will suffice. The adults do not
feed.

Adults will mate and lay in captivity without problems, females will then lay between 50 and 300
eggs which will hatch in about one week. Some crumpled up wax-coated paper in the container will
help the females to lay their eggs. The larvae go through three instars and then pupate in a silk cocoon
they will spin themselves within the confines of the corrugated cardboard.

The length of the larval stages will vary with temperature with the minimum time under optimum
conditions, at around 30 C or 85 F, of around one month. But they may take up to 5 months. Pupation
time is also related to temperature and will vary from around one week to 2 months. Therefore by
keeping the full grown larvae at a lower temperature they can be kept from pupating for a few weeks,
about 15 C or 60 F will be the best for this purpose. Putting them in an ordinary fridge will kill them.

The simplest way to obtain a culture is to contact your local bee keeping society and ask if anybody
has any infected hives. Though be sure to explain why you want them. Otherwise there are a number
of Pet Suppliers who sell you a starter culture of Wax Moth larvae these days. If this doesnt work
specimens can be acquired from some of the specialist biological supply companies listed at the end
of this book.
 Woodlice

Oniscus asellus from the UK. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction.

Woodlice, Roly-polies, Slaters, Cheesy bugs etc. are members of the great Arthropod Phylum,
however they are neither insects nor arachnids. Rather they are one of the few terrestrial
representatives of the primarily marine class of Arthropods known as the Crustacea.

The Crustacea, with over 80,000 species are the 2nd largest class of arthropods after the Insecta.
Within the Crustacea the woodlice are members of the order Isopoda and the family Oniscidae.
There are some 3,500 species of Woodlice in the world about 35 or 1% of these live in the UK.

Woodlice are amazing and often much maligned little animals that are well worth a second look.
Though many species are small and difficult to find, there are quite few larger species that are
regularly found around buildings. In fact the common species are abundant in most habitats and are
easy to keep in margarine or ice-cream containers as they are incapable of climbing up the sides,
some damp soil on the bottom and some house-hold vegetable scraps added occasionally and you
have some great pets.

You can also keep woodlice in glass jars or fish tanks, if you keep them in a fish tank you will need a
lid because they can climb up the glue in the corners of the tank. They are an ideal first pet and very
useful in schools.

Keep the soil damp but not too wet as excess moisture can kill Woodlice as easily as not enough.
Although the Woodlice will feed on the scraps that you put in they will also feed on their own faeces,
this is quite natural, what they are actually eating is the fungi and bacteria that are living on the
faeces.

Some species mostly of the genera Armadillidium, commonly called Pill Bugs, are capable of rolling
themselves up in a ball, this is a defence against desiccation as well as against predators such as
shrews which find it much harder to bite a ball than an unrolled Woodlice. If you find a dead
woodlouse, or if you cool one down in the fridge so that you can count the legs you will find that it
has fourteen, seven on each side, from this you can truly appreciate that woodlice are not insects.

Woodlice have endeared themselves to many peoples hearts in the past, and there are numerous
common names for those species which frequent human habitation, such as Bibble bugs, Cheesy bugs,
Cud-worms (a reference to their use by farmers in the past to promote restoration of the cud) Coffin-
cutters, Roly Poly, Monkey peas, Penny pigs, Sink-lice, Slaters, Sowbugs and Tiggyhogs.

Not everyone has liked them though. In the past, in some parts of Britain, their presence in a house
has been considered as unlucky and any food they walked over as poisoned. In other places they have
been considered a remedy for stomach upsets and diseases of the liver when eaten live. This is not as
unreasonable as it seems, their cuticle contains a lot of calcium carbonate so it is possible eating them
may help cure acid stomach, although why they should need to be alive remains a mystery to me.
Woodlice like most Crustaceans are quite edible and Vincent M. Holt in his quaint book "Why not eat
Insects" maintains, that for making a seafood sauce, woodlice are superior to prawns.

Like insects, and all other arthropods, growth in woodlice can only occur at times of moult, but unlike
insects woodlice only shed half their skin at a time. When approaching the time to moult a woodlice
stops eating for a few days, then its skin splits around its middle and it sheds the back half of its skin,
and then a few days later it sheds the front half, woodlice often eat their shed skin.

A woodlouse is very vulnerable during this time, and will often find somewhere away from its
fellows for the duration of its shedding, in fact some species build themselves a cocoon to hide in
while they shed their skins. In cultures a certain amount of cannibalism of shedding individuals may
occur, particularly if the container is crowded.

In nature most Woodlice die while they are still young with any individuals chances of surviving any
given day improving the older it gets, until they reach sexual maturity. Most of the larger species do
not breed until they are at least 2 years old.

Nearly all Woodlice are herbivores and many feed on dead and rotting vegetation, or the microbial
flora that infests such material. Ligia oceanica (Common Sea Slater) is the largest species in Britain,
up to 30 mms long, it lives only on the seashore and feeds mainly on the brown seaweed Fucus
vesiculosus, while Porcellio scaber a common woodland species likes to feed on tree bark but will
eat many other things. There are some carnivorous Woodlice in the genus Tylos , such as Tylos
latreillei a Mediterranean species which lives on the seashore and feeds nocturnally on Sandhoppers.

Philoscia muscorum lives almost entirely on rotting leaves and occupies a similar habitat in both
summer and winter, however other species such as Trichoniscus pusillus (Common Pygmy
Woodlouse) which shares the leaf litter with it during the winter changes its habitat during the summer
and lives almost entirely on and in rotting wood, while Porcellio scaber which lives at the bases of
trees during the winter moves higher up into the trees in summer.

Not all Woodlice live in woods or grasslands, Hemilepistus reaumuri lives in arid areas of North
Africa and the Middle East where it survives in small family groups in holes dug in the ground these
are 5-6 cm wide and can be over 30 cm deep, digging is stimulated by high temperatures, over 35 C,
if the bottom of the hole gets too hot they dig it a bit deeper.

Even stranger than this are Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi (Ant Woodlouse) a blind, eyeless white
woodlice found in Britain and Europe and Trichoniscus commensalis, a pale coloured but still eyed,
species from New Zealand, both of these live primarily in ant nests feeding on ant droppings and
fungi.

Mating occurs at night, and is therefore hard to see. The male climbs onto a receptive female, licks
her head and drums on her back with his legs for about five minutes. He then shifts to a diagonal
position on the females back and passes sperm to her left side genital opening from his right hand
stylets. He then changes his position to the opposite diagonal and deposits sperm in her right hand
genital opening from his left hand stylet.

Sperm transfer takes about 5 minutes for each side. In some species such as P. muscorum and A.
vulgare breeding is synchronised within a colony so that all breed at the same time. Most species
have one brood per year in Britain, though some such as P. muscorum have two in the South. The
exception to this is the small triploid (having three sets of chromosomes) T. pusillus which has two
broods all over Britain.

The number of eggs produced by a female of any given species increases with an increase in the size
of the female, one female A. vulgare is recorded as having had a brood of 267 young. The eggs take
from 3 to 9 weeks to hatch and spend from 3 to 9 nine days in the brood pouch.

When a Woodlouse is born it only has 6 pairs of legs, and is very vulnerable to desiccation (drying
out). For the first part of its life it lives in a brood pouch underneath its mothers body, this pouch is
composed of plates on the underside of segments 2-5, and is called a 'marsupium' and is grown
especially by pregnant females for this purpose, at this age a young woodlouse is called a manca'.
After its first moult it gains its 7th pair of legs and leaves the marsupium.

Though many spiders find Woodlice distasteful, a few species will eat them i.e. Tegenaria gigantea
and T. domestica, while some species like Dysdera crocata and D. erythrina have jaws specially
developed to deal with Woodlice and live almost entirely on them. Armadillidium klugii from
Dalmatia is a spider mimic and looks like the poisonous Latrodectus mactans especially when
young.

A Couple of Experiments.

Humidity Responses.

To start this experiment you will need several petri-dishes with two pieces of filter paper in the
bottom of them, in half of them the filter paper should be dry and in the others it should be thoroughly
damp. You will also need a number Woodlice of which ever species you wish to test, keep one third
of them in a container that is absolutely soaking in water so that the Woodlice almost have to swim,
one third in a container that is completely dry and one third in a container that has a damp substrate
similar to that which you would keep them in normally (see above), for about half an hour before the
experiment.

Now put one Woodlouse from each preliminary condition into one of each of the Petri-dishes
described first. Put the Woodlouse in the centre and then put the lid on and use a marker pen to record
the Woodlouse's position every 15 seconds for about 5 to ten minutes.

You do not need to do all the different combinations at the same time as long as your preparation is
the same each time. After ten minutes let the Woodlouse go back to its normal home and work out
both the total distance covered by the woodlouse, and the number of times the Woodlouse made a turn
of more than 90 degrees. You can divide the total distance in millimetres by the number of turns
greater than 90 degrees to get an activity number if you like.

If you have more time try comparing not only different species but also individuals within a species
and one individuals responses on a series of days to see if it remains constant. Two relevant
questions are. Do the Woodlice show different activity patterns on dry and damp substrates? Does
the habitat they were in previously affect this response?

Do Woodlice have a Permanent Home?

For this you will need a fish tank or something similar about 45 cm to 60 cm long by 20 cm to 30 cm
wide, the bigger the better, with a centimetre or so of damp soil on the bottom and four identical
shelters. Place the shelters at random in the tank, spread some food around the tank bottom and then
place a Woodlouse under one of the shelters. Is it under the same one the next day?

Record its movements for a week. Does it use one shelter more often than the others? You can now
try the experiment with four Woodlice, mark each one with a different colour of paint and record their
movements for a week, now try it with four of each colour under each shelter. Do the Woodlice in
groups respond differently to the individual ones?

You can run this experiment for as long as the paint allows you to tell who is who if you like. As an
extension of this experiment you could set up shelters for woodlice in some open ground, a flat piece
of 3-ply about 20 cm square with 4 pieces of timber 20 cm long, and 2 cm by 2 cm square on all four
edges to hold it off the ground will do fine. Leave them outside for a week, then mark all the
woodlice under each shelter use a different colour for each shelter, and check them each day after that
for two weeks or until the paint wears off recording how many of each colour are under each shelter.

References.

Hopkin, S. (1991) A key to the Woodlice of Britain and Ireland, Field Studies Council
(Aidgap) Washford UK.

Sutton, S.L. (1972) Woodlice. London, Ginn (republished by Pergammon Press, Oxford, in
1980).
 Sutton, S.L. and Holdich, D. M. (Eds). (1984) The Biology of Terrestrial Isopods
(Symposium of the Zoological Society of London no. 53). Oxford, Clarendon.
 Giant Mealworms

Zophobas morio, larva ready to pupate. Photo copyright :- Gordon Ramel

Introduction

Giant mealworms, also known as King Mealworms, are the larvae of a beetle scientifically known as
Zophobas morio and are a member of the Coleoptera family Tenebrionidae, as such they are related
to the smaller mealworms Tenebrio molitor and the larvae have a similar appearance.

They are reasonably easy to rear in culture and are another useful addition to any schools biology
teaching resources as they are large enough to be easily seen and survive gentle handling quite well.
The larvae, and to a lesser extent the adults can be used as a food source for carnivorous
invertebrates and vertebrates. Being beetles they are holometabolous meaning they have a four stage
life cycle of:- egg - larval instars - pupae - adult.

As with ordinary mealworms a culture can be kept in practically any container though it needs to be
larger and it needs to have a lid. I have raised them quite well in a fish tank 45cm long by 30cm high
and 20cm wide with a wood frame mesh lid.

In the wild they are a tropical species which live on scavenging the fruit dropped onto the forest
floor. Therefore they need different culture methods to ordinary mealworms. I raised them most
successfully in the above tank with 10cm of peat substitute potting compost on top of which I
maintained a constant supply of fruit and vegetable off-cuts from my cooking, supplemented by the
occasional potato or apple. The cage was kept half on and half off a heat pad and the compost was
kept moist, see the notes in part one.

The larvae of this species have the unfortunate habit of eating their pupating brethren if they get the
chance, thus as a survival characteristic they have evolved the habit of not pupating unless they have
found somewhere secure to do so. In my cultures I covered half the compost with a number of pieces
of well rotted and beetle chewed pieces of wood and enough pupation occurred within the nooks and
crannies of these, and some buried in the compost to keep the culture running even when I was
regularly extracting larvae for one reason or another.

If I wanted to be sure of having some adults for a show, or, if I wanted pupae for a school talk, I
would separate out some large larvae into individual pupating containers. These were small plastic
vials with a 5.5 cm diameter and 7 cm depth. I cut a cross in the plastic clip on lids for air access,
though gasses diffuse through many modern plastics, and half filled them with bran.

The larvae were released into these and a small piece of potato was added to each for moisture. My
notes record that most of these larvae came and rested on the top of the bran in 7 to 19 days, with
average of 13.2 days. It then took 4 to 6 days, with a couple of exceptions for the larvae to pupate.
The adults emerged from the pupae in 15 days on average, range = 11 to 26 days. The adults, like
those of most beetles, are milk white when they first emerge, slowly turning red and then black over a
space of 2 days as their cuticle hardens. I would not recommend returning adults to the culture until
they are black.

The simplest way to obtain a culture is to visit your local pet shop where the larvae are more than
likely sold as live pet food. Otherwise you can try some of the biological supply companies listed at
the end of this book.
 General References or Other Reading
Chapman R. F. The Insects, Structure and Function 4th Edition.

Frye, L.F. (1992). Captive Invertebrates, A Guide to Their Biology and Husbandry.
Krieger Publishing, Florida, USA

Galtsoff, P.S., Lutz, F.E., Welch, P.S. and Needham J.G. (1959). Culture Methods for Invertebrate
Animals. Dover Publications New York, USA

Gillot, C. Entomology

Gullan, P. J. and Cranston, P. S. The Insects, an outline of Entomology

Holt, V. M. Why Not Eat Insects.

Kneidel, S.S. (1993). Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method. Fulcrum Publishing, Colarado,
USA.

Methven, K.R., Jeffords, M. R., Weinzierl, R. A. and McGiffen, K.C. How to Collect and Preserve
Insects

Naumann, I. D. (Ed.) Systematic and Applied Entomology, An Introduction.

Oldroyd, H. Collecting, Preserving & Studying Insects.

Richards and Davies Imms General Textbook of Entomology; Tenth Edition, Vols 1 and 2

Upton, M.S. Methods for Collecting, Preserving and Studying Insects.

 Appendix 1. Entomological Supply Companies
As internet addresses have a bad habit of changing, or going out of date it is possible that by the time
you try accessing some of these they may not be there. In this case try searching for the company
name, or go to

Books
Aquila Natural History Books http://aquilabooks.crosswinds.net/aquila.homepage.html

Pemberly Books (UK, Used and New) http://www.pembooks.demon.co.uk/

E.W.Classey Ltd (UK, Books, Used and New) http://www.abebooks.com/home/bugbooks/

The Natural History Bookshop http://www.nhbs.com/

Pensoft Books, http://www.pensoft.org/ A Bulgarian scientific publisher producing many interesting

titles in English and other languages

Powells (Used Books) http://www.powells.com/

Apollo Books (A publisher specialising in entomology) http://www.apollobooks.com

Equipment
Alana Ecology http://www.alanaecology.com/

Watkins and Doncaster (UK) http://www.watdon.com/

Australian Entomological Supplies http://www.entosupplies.com.au/

Macrodontia (Canada)
http://www.quebecinsectes.com/pages/pages_english/macrodontia_english.html

Berkshire Biological (USA) http://www.berkshirebio.com/

Carolina Biological Supplies http://www.carolina.com/

Bioquip (USA) http://www.bioquip.com/

Wards Science Supplies (USA) http://www.wardsci.com/

Cicada Entomology and Natural History Specialists http://www.cicada.co.uk/

Entomopraxis (Spain) http://www.entomopraxis.com/

D. J. & D. Henshaw, 34 Rounton Rd., Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 3AR, England djhagro@aol.com

Marris House Nets, (The best nets in the UK) write to - 54 Richmond Park Avenue, Queen's Park,
Bournemouth, England BH8 9DR

Wards Biological Laboratory Supplies Catalogue, PO Box 92912 Rochester, NY 14692 Phone
(800) 635-8439
Microscopes
Brunel Microscopes (UK) http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/

Meiji Techno Microscopes (UK) http://www.meijitechno.co.uk/

Mel Sobel Microscopes (USA) http://www.microscopestore.com/

Livestock & Food

Southland Artificial Diets (USA) http://www.tecinfo.com/~southland/

Beneficial Insectory (Lacewings and other biocontrol bugs USA) http://www.insectary.com/

Worldwide Butterflies Butterflies, Phasmids and Millipedes (UK) http://www.wwb.co.uk/

BugsDirect, (a wide variety of inverts UK) http://www.bugsdirect.co.uk/

Ronalds Roaches (Live Cockraoches in the USA) http://lonestar.texas.net/~rtremper/roach.html

 Appendix 2. Entomological Societies
Two particularly useful societies are
In the UK :- The BugClub http://www.theaes.org/bugclub.htm

In the US :- The Young Entomologist Society http://members.aol.com/YESbugs/bugclub.html

For many more entomological societies on line see http://www.earthlife.net/insects/clublink.html

and
Entomology at the Iowa state University http://www.public.iastate.edu/~entomology/homepage.html
or
Entomology Web sites at http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/www_sites.html

The Lepidopterists' Society http://www.furman.edu/~snyder/snyder/lep/

The Association for Tropical Lepidoptera http://www.troplep.org/

The Coleopterists Society http://www.coleopsoc.org/

The Phasmid Study Group http://www.stickinsect.org.uk/

British Butterfly Conservation Society http://www.rfhsm.ac.uk:81/golly/bbc.html

The Amateur Entomologists Society (UK) http://www.theaes.org/

The British Entomology and Natural History Society

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pyo/BENHS.htm

The Entomological Society of America http://www.entsoc.org

The Southwestern Entomological Society http://entowww.tamu.edu/swento.html

Pacific Coast Entomological Society http://www.bais.com/~wsavary/pceshome.htm

The Australian Entomological Society http://www.uq.edu.au/entomology/aes/intro.html

The Entomological Society of Southern Africa http://www.up.ac.za/academic/entomological-

society/entsoc.html

Sociedade Entomologica do Brasil http://www.ciagri.usp.br/~seb/

Appendix 3. Mailing Lists and Yahoo Groups etc

If you go to Yahoo Groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/ type insects into the search engine you will
get a list of interesting groups such as
British Insects, Bug Club, Exotic Pets, Indian Butterflies and The Naturalistic Vivarium. They are
easy to join, and to leave again if they prove to be not what you are looking for.

For those wishing to delve into things a bit more deeply or scientifically the following web site may
be of interest.

Diptera Info, a web forum on everything to do with flies - http://www.diptera.info/

The author.
 Index
209

Acheta domesticus, 88
Amblypygi, 37
Ant-lions, 40
Ants, 43
Aphids
As food for Hoverflies, 108
As food for Ladybirds, 113
Arachnidae
Amblypygi, 37
Common spiders, 163
Mygalomorphae, 174
Solifugae, 159
Uropygi, 182
Asellus aquaticus, 100
Assassin Bugs, 48
Beating Tray, 20
Beetles
Confused Flour, 181
Giant mealworms, 194
Goliath, 145
Ground, 66
Ladybird, 112
Scarabs, 139
Stag, 118
Blaberus craniifer, 78
Blaberus discoidalis, 78
Blattodea, 76
Bombyx mori, 154
Butterflies
From the UK and USA, 61
From the USA, 59
Heliconidae, 61
In the UK, 56
Intro, 51
Caddisflies, 99
Cages
For Ants, 44
General, 22
 Making your own, 25
Camel-spiders, 159
Carabidae, 66
Centipedes, 69
Cheesy bugs, 188
Chilopoda, 69
Chironomids, 73
Chironomus tentans, 73
Coccinelidae, 4, 112, 113, 114, 115
Cockroaches, 76
Coleoptera
Allomyrrhina, 145
Carabidae, 66
Chalacosoma, 144
Chelorrhina, 146
Cicindelidae, 152
Coccinelidae, 112
Dynastes granti, 143
Lucanidae, 118
Megasoma, 145
Pachnoda, 146
Scarabaeidae, 139
Stephanorrhina, 146
Tenebrionidae, 126
Tribolium confusum, 181
Zophobas morio, 194
Collembola, 79
Confused Flour Beetles, 181
Crane Flies, 84
Crickets, 87
Crustacea
Decapoda, 110
Oniscidae, 188
Death
Of your pets, 34
Dictyoptera
Blattodea, 76
Mantidae, 121
Diplopoda, 129
Diptera
Chironomidae, 73
Culicidae, 136
Drosophilidae, 90
Muscidae, 104
Syrphidae, 106
 Tipulidae, 84
Diving beetles, 101
Drosophila, 90
Dynastes, 143
Earthworms, 93
Ephemeroptera, 99
Eristalis tenax, 107
False Spiders, 159
Field Cricket, 88
Flatworms
Fresh water, 96
In mixed tanks, 100
Flies
Crane flies, 84
Fruit, 90
Houseflies, 104
Hoverflies, 106
Midges, Non-biting, 73
Mosquitoes, 136
Folsomia candida, 83
Formicidae, 43
Fruit flies, 90
Galleria mellonella, 186
Giant Mealworms, 194
Gromphadorhina, 76
Ground Beetles, 66
Gryllus bimaculatus, 88
Gryllus campestris, 88
Habitat
Making your own, 20
Hand Nets
making your own, 16
Handling
Your pets, 32
Harvestmen, 102
Heating
For cages etc., 27
Hemiptera
Lygaeidae, 127
Reduviidae, 48
Hermit Crabs
Terrestrial, 110
Heteroptera
Aquatic, 101
Houseflies, 104
Hoverflies, 106
Hymenoptera
Formicidae, 43
Isopoda
Terrestrial, 188
Ladybird Beetles, 112
Lepidoptera
General, 51
Pyralidae (Wax moths), 186
Leptothorax tuberointerruptus, 44
Lighting
For Cages etc, 27
Locusts, 116
Lucanidae, 118
Mantids
Hoverflies as food for..., 108
Mayflies, 99
Mealworms, 126
Milkweed bugs, 127
Millipedes, 129
Mosquitoes, 136
Moths
From the UK, 58
From the USA, 59
Further Notes, 62
Introduction, 51
Other common species, 61
Silk worms, 154
Wax, 186
Mymelionidae, 40
Odonata
Dragonflies and Damselflies, 98
Oligochaeta, 93
Opilionidae, 102
Orthoptera
Crickets, 87
Locusts, 116
Pandinus, 148
Phasmidae, 168
Pit-fall traps, 15
Platymeris biguttata. Assassin Bugs
Pools
Making your own, 21
Pooter
Making your own, 18
Praying Mantids, 121
Pycnoscelus surinamensis, 77
Roly-polies, 188
Scarabaeidae, 139
Scolopendra, 70
Scorpionidae, 147
Scorpions, 147
Silk Worms, 154
Six Spot Tiger Beetle, 152
Slaters, 188
Slugs, 156
Snails
Land, 156
Solifuges, 159
Spiders
Common species, 163
Tarantulas, 174
Springtails, 79
Stag Beetles, 118
Stick-Insects, 168
Sun Scorpions, 159
Syrphidae, 106
Tail-less Whip Scorpions, 37
Tarantulas, 174
Tenebrio molitor, 126
Tetramorium ceaspitum, 45
Tipulidae, 84
Trichoptera, 99
Tricladida, 96
Uropygi, 182
Wax Moths, 186
Whip Scorpions, 182
Whip Spiders, 37
Wind Scorpions, 159
Woodlice, 188
Two experiments, 191
Worms
Rain worms, Night crawlers, 93
Zophobas morio, 194
209
Current Publications by Gordon J. L. Ramel

On Kindle
Breeding Invertebrates for Food & Fun - $2.99
Will-O-The-Wisp (a novel of the young at heart) - $2.99
Tall Tales, Beautiful Beasts & Peculiar People (Poetry for the young at heart) $1.00
The Human Disease (Poetry) - $1.00
Naturally Beautiful (Poetry) - $1.00
Strangely Human (Poetry) - $1.00
Almost Sane (Poetry) - $1.00 coming soon
Dreams of Other Worlds (SciFi Poetry & Prose) $1.00 coming soon.

On The Internet
The Earthlife Web (Zoology for Home Schoolers)
http://www.earthlife.net/begin.html

I Dont Smoke (e-book to help people give up smoking)

http://www.ramel.org/nosmoke/intro.html

The Author also has a shop at CafePress

called The Thinking Man Shop
http://www.cafepress.com/TTMshop

Here you will find a variety of products

to help you demonstrate your love of
Nature and the Natural World.

To learn more about the author you may visit

His website http://www.ramel.org/

May Peace and Light be with you always.

209
 Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Welcome
Part 1; Introduction
Finding and Catching Invertebrates
Cages or Housing
Bites and Stings.
Handling Invertebrates
People Like Me
Part 2 ; Introduction
Amblypygi
Ant- lions
Ants
Assassin Bugs
Butterflies and Moths
Ground Beetles
Centipedes
Chironomids
Cockroaches
Collembola
Crane Flies
Crickets
Drosophila
Earthworms
Fresh-water Flatworms
Fresh-water Insects
Harvestmen
Houseflies
Hoverflies
Hermit Crabs (Terrestrial)
Ladybird Beetles
Locusts
The Lucanidae
Praying Mantids
Mealworms
Milkweed bugs
Millipedes
Mixed Cultures
Mosquitoes
Scarabaeidae
Scorpions
Asian Six Spot Tiger Beetle
Silk Worms
Slugs and Snails
Solifuges
Other Spiders
Stick-Insects
Tarantulas
Confused Flour Beetles
Whip Scorpions
Wax Moths
Woodlice
Giant Mealworms
General References or Other Reading
Appendix 1. Entomological Supply Companies
Appendix 2. Entomological Societies
Appendix 3. Mailing Lists and Yahoo Groups etc
Index
Current Publications by Gordon J. L. Ramel