Best Arthropod Pets and Why?

I’ve had a black widow. She was indeed low-maintenance, only needing to be fed every couple weeks.

I’ve been thinking of trying those Triops. We had an aquarium when we were kids, and as much as I enjoy fishes, I’m not so sure about keeping them in a space so much smaller than their normal habitat. A natural water body the size of a home aquarium would not have fishes, especially if it was disconnected from any streams.

I know the OP said ideally no smell, but I do enjoy hearing crickets stridulate, and wouldn’t mind keeping a few as pets in themselves, not as feeders for something else.

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Yes, Triops are ~really~ fun❣️ I raised a few tanks of them. I put my first batch in a large glass carafe . It was okay, but hard to manage the cloudy wAter after month or so. Then I got a small aquarium with a bubbler and that was more satisfactory for later batches. Super cool to watch their acrobatics when molting, which they did often.


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Oh, another nice arthropod pet I had was a praying mantid. She would climb on my hand every day for little walks around the patio. She had gorgeous eyes, so I named her after Gilda Radner.

image

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me and a friend

It’s Lawnshrimp, isn’t it? Small world.

color mutants

It’s not the inbreeding I particularly fear, it’s the hypomelanism and pleiotropy. Ask Shrimp about the text wall I typed a few hours ago if you will.

I almost forgot! I enjoyed the tarantulas we had at the nature centers where I used to work. I particularly liked the Mexican Red-knees - docile and beautiful!

One Halloween long ago, I had an offsite Arthropod program to give at a primary school, so I took full advantage and went dressed up as Ms Metamorphosis .


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Love that shirt! I have a similar one but it only has one species - monarch caterpillar and chrysalis on front, and the butterfly on the back.

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I could kick myself for donating that shirt (what a goober)! The larvae on the front were shaped as question ? marks, so you could match them to the corresponding adults shown on the back.

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Had a pair of Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) before I moved to Korea and enjoyed taking care of them.

Fairly low maintenance and feeding them often consisted of sharing fruit that I wasn’t going to finish like orange peels, bits of banana, and apple cores along with a few pellets of dry dog food. Nice that it was also possible to go on a vacation for a few days and not need to worry about feeding them. A bottle cap sunk into the bedding of their enclosure was enough to serve as a water container. Made a few hiding spots for them out of ordinary household items like empty toilet paper rolls.

They don’t have wings so won’t fly away while you’re handling them, which is definitely convenient.

Mine came from my university’s entomology department, which was otherwise using them as a food source for other arthropods.

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any interest in crustaceans? Some of the small freshwater shrimp are neat pets. My 7 year old has a 3.5 gallon tank with a mix of cherry shrimp and small hitchhiking snails that came in on a plant. They’re neat to watch and very easy to care for.

I slept like four hours today and don’t want to type a text wall (nor do I feel like typing one tomorrow, since I shall be feeling almost equally depressed and unwell), but one notable symptom is that they’ll often abandon their meals for several minutes after interacting with conspecifics. This isn8’t very harmful on its own and if hungry enough they’ll ignore each other to feed but I assume it impacts health significantly over the long periods the animals live via chronic stress mechanjsms (“death via thousand cuts”).

Let’s not mention the wall confusion in any detail. It’s a significantly milder version of the reason captive clupeids and adult lepidopterans engage in self-injurious wall related behavior and doesn’t actually seem to cause physical harm to the tenebrionids, though it may(?) stress them out significantly nevertheless. I hold the rather unpopular opinion that insect psychological welfare is insufficiently considered by most entomologists.

Pardon my incomplete explanation, I really should go to sleep.

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I’m shocked no one has mentioned Pediculus. I’ve known many children who kept them successfully, without any effort. They are really quite hard to kill, are easily available in many countries, and are marvels of engineering and pesticide resistance.

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Thanks, I appreciate the insight you were able to share (and my sympathies for your mental health). I think I recognize you from some other insect welfare related discussions I’ve seen and I value your alternate and thoughtful point of view.

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Hissing cockroaches are really easy and they’re fun for kids, since they’re handleable.

There a ton of tarantula species kept by hobbyists. Many of them are fairly simple to keep, although some are rather difficult. Different species have different needs so be sure to research the care of the species you’re interested in getting.

Most beetle species don’t live very long as adults. There are some species that are easy to breed, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for.

Most centipedes, scorpions, and vinegaroons in the hobby are similar other than the temperature and humidity each species needs. They can be really cool but they like hiding during the day, so they aren’t ideal display animals. Many scorpions and nearly all centipedes have moderately dangerous stings. These can range from pretty painful to requiring a visit to the emergency room. Most tarantulas (and some scorpion species) have very mild venom. I had California forest scorpions and got stung by one of them, and it hurt a lot less than the many times my dog has accidentally bitten me instead of the rope we’re playing with.

Millipedes and isopods (often called roly-polies or pill bugs) are both often kept in colonies. They eat rotting wood and decaying leaves, and you can also feed them various fruits and vegetables. Some species are very easy to keep, while others are extremely difficult.

Praying mantises are fun to keep. They can be a little trickier if you get them when they’re very young nymphs, but once they get bigger they’re quite easy. Many species are quite beautiful, and since they sit out in the open they make lovely display animals.

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I have some Daphnia (water flea) populations in yogurt pots on my windowsill that are approaching their tenth birthday. Easy to maintain - don’t let them get too hot, give the pot a swirl every day and crumble in a worm cast every few months. But I can’t claim to engage with them as individuals.

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While walking to work today I realized another suggestion would be stag and rhinoceros beetles. Supermarkets here in South Korea almost always have larva, terrariums, and special jelly food packets for sale though they seem to carry less in stock now than when I first moved here.

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I have found a few populations infected with the species Lecanicillium saksenae, it is most probable that many pathogenic fungi infect Isopoda.

I agree, both Kyle and Laura are great sellers and are very keen on line purity; however, their prices can be on the higher end, I would recommend the amazing seller ezyeddie on Reddit.

This is a common misconception in the isopod hobby, isopods are just as affected by inbreeding as other animals. The affects of inbreeding on isopods are not well studied by hobbyists or by scientists; however, weird mutations have started to surface impacting individuals ability to molt, inbredding has also led many populations to have lower reproductive rates. Photos of the mutation: A. maculatum and P. expansus

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I’ve been growing the caterpillars of Papilio machaon since i was a little kid, getting the caterpillars from my vegetable garden and then observing the life cycle. Once the butterfly emerges, I let it free.
Fresh food is ready in the garden, easy terrarium maintenance. 10/10 would recommend :grin:

Oh yeah those are wack looking, and yeah probably didn’t word it the best there, definitely seem to be more resistant in comparison to like, most vertebrates where its way easier to see the affects (poor health in super inbred freshwater fish, brachycephalic bearded dragons cropping up etc), but yeah more genetic diversity is always better and ofc inbreeding will catch up to stuff eventually

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I too am surprised! I’m also surprised that Cimex lectularis hasn’t been mentioned. It’s perfect for people who are are night owls, who enjoy hide and seek to find their pets, and they do exceptionally well in high density urban settings! Be careful though, it’s easy to share these pets with nearby neighbors, friends, and family who may feel differently about them…

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Oh yeah for this I’ll have to grab a pic for an isopod example but the underside is a chalky white instead of pale and translucent like it should be.


In crayfish/shrimp it seems this is caused by a microsporidian? (Thelohania sp)
So not technically wrong to say its fungal maybe but not a proper usual fungus like the one you found
(Could be something entirely different too honestly, this is just my best guess since I’ve also got a lot a lot of aquarium hobby experience under my belt)