Abbott Ecology

  I’m gonna grow mealworms for my ducks! My son with a big ol’ handful of larvae!  Here’s the top drawer. I have the larval stage in the top drawer with plenty of fruit for the little guys to munch Shout out to my lemon cucumber plants! They’re the MVPs here for producing enough water source for three drawers and 7 ducks!  I think that this pale guy either just became the last instar of the cycle or is about to pupate. I’m not entirely sure at this point. He stays in the baby bin until later notice.  Update 08/27/22: This is what they look like right after molting into their last instar. Ugh. What a cute one with his little grape. I have pupa in the bottom drawer. I’m not feeling quite as confident about that move, because I’d like to turn the second drawer’s bottom into a screen for eggs to drow down into. However, I have neither the time nor the screen materials to accomplish that, so for now they’re gonna have their own beauty sleep area. I put them all under the ...

  Date unknown!  Saddlefly  Brown dragonfly Ground Beetle  I guess I just didn’t have the time to write an entry. It was just an image dump?? Naughty scientist!  The dark bug with the tapered abdomen was in the parking lot of the school I teach at in Bulverde! He was captured, photographed, and released.  The saddlefly was at our house and landed on James!  The brown dragonfly was just chillin’ at my rock climbing gym.

  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.