Close up looks at some of the arthropods I care for, including tarantulas, mantids, isopods, and roaches. Upbeat discussion about my experiences with husbandry, feeding tips, and uses for insects in your daily life.
Does freezing the scorpion kill it??? I wanna kill a scorpion I found tdy and put it in risen mold and ya but I'm still a beginner so some1 please answer
Hi friendly reminder, according to the internet and the sellers you need at least wait 3 day after your mantis molt till you and touch or handle it because even the mantis look fine their skin are still soft
Do you need to do something to process the bodies before casting? I've heard that putting anything with moisture in resin is a bad idea and can cause it to grow mold, discolor etc.
depends on the insect and its thickness. i tend to either pin them into the shape i want and leave them open in the freezer for a few months (what i mean by “out of the freezer” at the beginning) if i am concerned about color, or just pin them and let dry if they are thinner. bigger critters like tarantula, large mantises, or roaches need gutted if you dont have time to freeze-dry. but also the parts i am using in the video (wings and pronotum) are fine as-is
I see, thank you so much for the response. I have a tiny jumping spider that I want to memorialize in resin, but his abdomen is way too small to be gutted and re-stuffed. What would you recommend doing? I did some searching and ppl said that the exothermic nature of resin curing can cause the abdomens to burst if they're put directly into resin. @@ArthropodAmbassadors
sometimes pin them into a good position and let them sit open to the air, if i am worried about color i put the pinned setup into a freezer open to the air. i have also used my freeze dryer. or just use the position they are in. there should be lots of content on YT about pinning and ‘relaxing’ insect specimens:)
Thank you, I have a subadult in premoult, i thought that was what's happening, but it's been a few days since she started looking like she was going to moult, and I thought it should've happened by now, and I was starting to get nervous of it!
I never thought to use death feigning beetles as a clew up crew, especially for a smaller species of lizard but I guess it makes sense. Have you ever had any issues with the beetles chewing on the lizards?
Impressive set up! I keep saying for years now that I'm gonna get an exotic but then get too intimidated lol. Been a mantis mommy for 4yrs now. It's ALWAYS fascinating seeing what each species is capable of learning. Mine become so used to being handled that they let me pet them and even let me give them kisses...which is very strange to people until they see how sweet they are lol. I train mine as well. They are amazing critters with an actual capacity for love and learning. I think the only thing holding me back from getting one of these is their lifespan and tendency towards going into threat pose. I heard somewhere that the giant species don't even make it to a full year. My first mantis, Fluffy, was an amazingly sweet lil' girl that lived to be almost 15 months!!! I always come back to this video and pay close attention to what you do bc I really want to raise one of these gorgeous gentle giants soon. Plus, they really do look amazing and like little aliens lol. You're one of the best mantis mommies I have ever seen on the platform!
Is that a little refilling water bowl? would you be able to share where you got it from! Seems like a great idea for babies that can dehydrate so quickly
I have learned the hard way how important that first hour is to stop the insects or flowers from floating up. Also I needed to put my wasp upside down in my mold 🤦🏻♀️
I found a deceased bee today in the choir loft of my church; scooped him up not knowing what I’d do with him. I think I’ll try this! I may have yet another hobby!
a bigger enclosure helps, but they are sight-based so if they see each other they will gather w interest. My experience is they often cannibalize when they see each other eating or molting more that just randomly
@@ArthropodAmbassadors thanks. There's so little information comparing Male to Female spiny flower mantis's specifically and what I have found is conflicting info. I'm not even sure anymore if mine is male or female. I always thought female, but now they're an adult IDK!
I don't keep them together to do so. They are not in hunting mode when being handled for a quick video so I don;t worry during that, and Spiny flowers can be semi communal at younger ages with members of the same size if kept with plenty of food, and use their body language to warn each other away, but otherwise yes they will eat each other I house them separate. But when being picked up and handled they don't just jump over and ravenously start eating another, they are much more situationally aware than that :)
Thank u n I found a dead monarch butterfly in a parking lot n it's in perfact condition so just thought she was Soo beautiful I wanted to some how keep her
Great video. I have a solution for the floating bug issue. I pour a little bit of the resin into the mould first, let it harden a little, then put the insect in, then fill the rest of the mould with resin.
thank u 4 the help!! u found a beautiful beetle that is dying. i left him outside but if i find him after he has passed away i will try preserving him!!!
I wondered how would you start the process. Reason i ask is a lot of bees are dying in my area and ive been trying to figure out a way to preserve them. They are dying naturally. But i dont know what i have to do after finding them. Do i just start the resin pouring after a few days or? Do i have to like put the bees in something first or like do something to prep them first?
Saw this creeping out of my bathroom water faucet. Read that as they mostly hide to do this, seeing one means surely infestation. Then I remembered, I live in Mexico. So totally normal LOL 🤣🤣😝🦗
The big issue with what your using for water is a big drowning hazard for the emps, make sure to get some way to prevent them from doing so, enough to be able to climb back out
After acquiring two different bloodlines from two separate colonies online just to avoid multigenerational inbreeding, I don't even know if I will use em as feeders 🤣 They're just way to attractive to be used as feeders for my tarantulas and scorpions in my opinion. I don't know, maybe when their populations increases I might start culling some of them, but I'll have to see lol For now I am currently using my red runners and blaberus parabolicus “colombia” as my main base feeders.
Almost all roaches in the hobby are severely inbred, leading to incredibly low genetic diversity, no matter where they're sourced from. There's a very, very strong likelihood that combining those two colony lines does almost nothing for the roaches. Inbreeding typically isn't an issue, though. Despite thousands of generations of inbreeding over decades with long-time hobbyists, the numerous species we keep still persist. There's not really anything we can do about it, since wild imports aren't being collected anymore, because they breed so readily in captivity. There's no effective way to avoiding inbreeding, unfortunately, and that's okay. At least, for now...
Seeing this video is two years old, probably won't hear back but just in case. My partners Orchid Mantis molted a week ago almost and still hasn't eaten anything. It's small so not fully grown. It's leg got caught in it's molt and it isn't using it's leg now. Is that a cause for them to not eat? My partner is worries they are dying :(
Hello! hope your little one started eating, often they take a few days to harden up enough to eat, but also a mismolt can not be quite as obvious, such as the tracheal tubes getting stuck. Usually a leg isn't as much of an issue, unless it gets an infection, which is a risk that can increase with high / constant humidity. I usually try to offer a drop of honey/water/nutritional yeast on a toothpick as a boost if it has been more than a week after a molt and still no interest in food. Hope that helps, sorry to hear you are having issues!
Just found this video because I’m really getting into this hobby ! Beautiful , ethically obtained specimens !!! Also love your budgies talking in the background !! I have birds too 🖤
