Abbott Ecology

  September 15, 2019 My nymphs have molted! I found them on September 13th looking totally different. They’re black and about twice as big as they were before. Apparently when they’re between molting periods it’s called an “instar” so Sixx and Mars (I’ve been calling her Marzipan) are now at their second instar. They started fighting after this molt, so they are now in separate containers. The live sage that I put into their enclosure has been nibbled, while the mint seems like it’s still intact. The aloe is also relatively unchewed. I picked up some new plants at Home Depot today, and a new glass container. I’ll pull out some live plants with roots attached to see if my little black beauties will eat the plants. When choosing plants from the store I looked for leaves that had been nibbled, and I plan to thoroughly wash everything before putting it into an enclosure. Pesticides will kill my precious babies, so I need to make sure that everything is clean.  September 19, 2019 M...

August 30, 2019 A moment of silence for our fallen bugs… I found Suzie, Friend (Now named John), and one of the nymphs dead in their enclosures.  Taps: https://youtu.be/WChTqYlDjtI   Hopefully Suzie and John are fresh enough to pin. They can't escape. I'll love them forever. Update: I tried pinning them, but transferring dead bugs is a lot more delicate than previously anticipated and I accidentally *boing*ed the pin and their legs exploded everywhere. August 31, 2019 Well… the last nymph is dead. This is super disappointing.   September 8, 2019 Two more nymphs hatched! I noticed that one of them hadn’t moved since hatching, and I discovered that her leg was stuck to the paper by her egg shell. I helped her off of the paper, but a small bit of paper stayed and it made it difficult for her to move around. She continually was stuck on damp surfaces until she decided she had enough of it and ripped her own leg off. How metal is that? Her name is (Nikki) Sixx. Yes it’s both a...

  August 29, 2019 "Friend" escaped yesterday. He then apparently TERRIFIED my husband as he was moving things off the dining room table last night. Oops! So far we have no eggs from (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Friend is a male) him, so tomorrow when I'm able to observe them I'll introduce Suzie to Friend. He needs a proper name, though.  Update from later Aug 29th: BREAKING NEWS: We have nymphs! Two of the egg sacs are translucent, with a corresponding two nymphs. One egg is brown (likely dead) and the other one has remained green,  so I suspect that we will have a third nymph soon. They're huge in comparison to their eggs. The eggs are 3mm wide, and the length of the nymph's body is about 5mm. 

 This is getting out of hand…   Suzie has a friend now. I'll observe to see if it lays eggs. I cannot find information on how to tell the sex of a leaf footed bug, so if it doesn't lay eggs within a few days I'll introduce them and hope that they're nice to each other. Once I saved two crayfish from HEB and they fought to the death, so that's a very real possibility. I have hope for a better outcome and interesting observations (like fertilized eggs!) once they're together, assuming it's a male.

  This is my buddy Suzie and her eggs. There's not any information online about keeping a leaf footed bug alive. It's more about how to kill them. We will see how this goes. So far she's had a tomato and hasn't been interested in banana yet. I made her a habitat out of damp shredded paper and a cloth secured with a rubber band for air.

  Ok. Pinning is not my thing. I tried all summer and I officially hate it. I've exploded two more completely pinned spiders today trying to transfer them to my shadow box and I'm over it. It's catch or observe from here on out. No more losing legs or weird drying. No more primal screaming when I bend a leg the wrong way or my hand twitches and I rip off an antennae. No more guilt as the animal dies for me, or wondering if the spider in my jar might have eaten some of these dang flies. ' I found a leaf bug that I already wasn't sure about killing yet, mainly because it takes SO STINKING LONG TO PIN AND I HATE IT, but also because she laid eggs in the jar. I gave her a tomato and she's been sucking on it.  Leaf-footed bug I pinned the last two bugs that I had to and threw out the others (sorry tiny spider and other spider… I hate all your legs) and it turned out okay. I pinned a June bug and a little spindly flying guy from my Godson.  Common June Bug Cockroach E...

  GRRRRRRRRRR This is the SECOND American House Spider that I have ruined. It was totally dry and I dropped the foam board with my spider on it maybe ¼ of an inch. I’m not above supergluing this dude back together, so help me! I have a brown widow that dried janky despite all my best efforts, a 7-legged American House Spider and I just pinned my SECOND green grasshopper. If this grasshopper doesn’t make it I’m going to defenestrate the whole project!  No bug entries for today, this is journal entry functions to say that science isn’t perfect. It’s an iterative process that demands careful and patient attention. Sometimes as scientists it is difficult to channel the attention appropriately. In my case screaming rather than continuing to explore. The more that I practice the better I will get, I just need to make it through a few more screaming fits and superglue the broken pieces back together - possibly literally? No shame.  Also, I saw a trapdoor spider and decided not t...