I’d make sure that none of the animals you want to keep were poached from the wild, which I know can be the case for things like tarantulas and I’m sure many other inverts. If you go the dealer route, I’d make sure they’re captive bred from a reputable person.
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I am not comfortable removing them from the wild even if allowed.
I feel some sort of “disconnect” when acquiring from a reputable breeder so I will likely go down that route.
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I imagine it would be really fun to have a invert community of say millipedes, isopods, cockroaches etc. I can feed them vegetable peels or related and watch them crawl about.
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Do note that many “herbivorous” bugs may sometimes eat each other, especially when molting or underfed. I once even saw a report of a teneral captive millipede being eaten by woodlice (no idea why they weren’t repelled by the defensive chemicals).
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Had to look up the genus to get the joke… I must be a little slow today.
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Huh, I did not know that. I suppose that is not entirely surprising, considering their detritivorous nature (???)
Eh, it’s not just the detritivores. Even plant-feeding heteropterans and tettigoniids love to consume dead/helpless prey items.
(Conversely, many carnivorous taxa love to consume nectar and fruit - I often see Zelus and various giant-jawed carabids gorging themselves on sugars.)
With that being said, mixed community tanks aren’t impossible as long as great caution is employed. I once kept some Tanystoma maculicolle adults with those of some similarly sized microcarabids and no attacks occurred even when a half-dead specimen was present.
In case you’re wondering that specimen eventually recovered from its mysterious ailment and lived a long life.
It depends on the pod but yeah, Porcellio scaber/laevis especially can be voracious, (especially laevis lol). Armadillidium sp. or Cubaris murina or T. rathkii are generally way nicer when cohabbed with stuff, just give your pods some fish food or dog food once in a while for supplemental protein
With this bit it really depends on the particular taxa you’re keeping. With things like spiders, scorpions etc yeah poaching and mass imports can be a really big issue, but I think part of the fun with keeping bugs is that for a lot of common species (millipedes, any sort of -pod, etc) you really can just grab some from your backyard and keep them in a plastic shoebox. Really just comes down to familiarizing yourself with the different facets of the invert hobby I guess
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Besides, most wild isopods aren’t even native to Florida anyways.
(What objection can there be to scooping up a few pillbugs that weren’t supposed to be there in the first place?)
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theres definitely way more native ones than people think there are in the southeast (“Porcellionides” ““virgatus”” absolutely represents a ton of distinct species lol), but yeah, lots of introduced guys around developed areas
Blue death feigning beetles have been bred in captivity. There are a few people who have bred them, but the majority have been wild caught.
I’m aware, they’re notoriously difficult to breed.
(I was careful to say “most wild” instead of “wild” for this exact reason.)
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