Everything I grow is situated in my bedroom but I don't only grow carnivorous plants, I have a variety of vegetable plants and a pair of orchids too; I also keep and maintain a variety of animals and wanted to share some photos and stories about them with the Flytrapcare.com community.
First up are my stick insects: Creeper, Terra and Gaia. Their scientific name is
Extatosoma tiaratum but they are often referred to as a
Macleay's Spectre or
giant spiny leaf insect. Females can grow up to 20cm long whereas males usually reach 11-13cm and both feast on bramble. Other food sources are eucalyptus (we own two
Eucalyptus gunii trees but they aren't of sufficient size to use as a food source yet), rose and oak. I had created another topic regarding an
E. tiaratum nymph (baby) that I acquired months ago but unfortunately she perished (very likely due to no fault of my own but rather the high mortality rate amongst babies). I was utterly devastated when I lost Spectre, as she had been called, but decided to go ahead with breeding plans I had made for her future using a different pair of females.
To start with though I'd like to introduce the man of the house, Creeper. He was a gift to me from a friend and arrived the day after Spectre's passing. He is a sub-adult (one moult away from becoming an adult) and has a short pair of undeveloped wing buds - once he becomes an adult he will be able to fly. He's a very docile little creature and doesn't mind being handled, he'll quite happily sit on my wrist while I do stuff or clean his tank out. The mottling above his mandibles reminds me of a handlebar moustache.
When you spend all your time looking at two chunky female
E. tiaratum it can be quite horrifying to see your male looking exceptionally thin. When I realized that Creeper had gone off bramble I thought he was going to die due to not wanting to feed, I hopped around the garden looking for a food source and was informed that we have a well-established rose bush. Upon trying the rose leaves with Creeper we discovered he quickly became besotted with them, so we fed him exclusively on rose for a while. He is now back to eating bramble but we always give him rose leaves as well just in case.
Now I'd like for you to meet the sisters, Gaia and Terra. I wanted to breed
E. tiaratum and sell on the eggs or babies while donating part of the money earned to charity, I love these animals and hoped that this breeding program would share that love and joy. I had set to acquiring a single sub-adult female to act as Creeper's wife but upon making some enquiries with a particular gentleman I found myself with not one but two ladies. When they arrived I was absolutely stunned at just how much larger they were than Spectre (although they were much older than she). I set them up in a temporary enclosure while their main one was being arranged and sat a ruler by them to take some photos to show just how large they were (about 10 - 11cm long, also the cube is around 30cm tall so that gives a good size comparison).
About a week after receiving them Terra moulted into an adult. She's now a whopping 16 cm long (this is an estimate) and very aggressive. The ladies don't like being handled too much and so I have taken rather a hands-off approach to avoid stressing them. Gaia should be due to moult soon, as should Creeper. I don't have any close up photos of Terra, nor anything to compare her with but here is a small photo I was able to take of her a day or two after she finished moulting and drying out.
I'm currently in the midst of creating a stick insect nursery for future babies out of an old shelving unit. It has already been lined with clear plastic to waterproof it and I spent a lovely afternoon hammering tacks into plastic mesh for the roof (it's better to have a mesh roof to allow the stick insects to moult unhindered). I'll get photos up once the thing is completed.
Next up: my beetles! I own a pair of sun beetles, scientific name
Pachnoda marginata peregrina; they have been lovingly named Herp and Derp (these names are very likely to be changed) and they reside in a terrarium on my desk. Deep in the soil of their home lay three cocoons that I am eagerly awaiting to hatch into more adult beetles - I also believe there to be a pair of grubs currently foraging on old leaf litter and decaying wood. Herp and Derp's home is special for many reasons but particularly so because they share it with my Utricularia and a pair of
Pinguicula weser. Yes, I have beetles in a carnivorous plant terrarium - guess what - they get along
beautifully!
The
U. sandersonii is a bit of a pain to keep moist as it's growing along a piece of driftwood and the plants, I'm sure, could do with a little more light but they've grown well so far. The Pinguicula stopped producing mucus for a short while but has since continued and I have spied the beetles supping at this ... delicious? stuff a number of times. The purpose of the butterworts is to help reduce mite populations within the soil (as these beetles feed on fruit and fruit jellies there are bound to be a myriad of micro fauna rummaging through the soil as well looking for tasty morsels). All plants are grown along the back wall of the terrarium to allow plenty of burrowing space nearer the front of the enclosure, the piece of driftwood also has two tunnels going beneath it though I have not seen the beetles using this yet... they prefer to burrow into the plants.
Sun beetles can, like most beetles, fly and when they do so they are rather loud (sounding like toy helicopters or excessively large bees). I love watching them -- one has learned that if he positions himself just right he can actually hover around very well whereas the other tends to fly into one wall, rebound and fly into another wall and another until he ends up on his back. Both beetles have regularly fallen onto their backs from being overzealous in their climbing attempts (they regularly hang from the mesh roof as they enjoy the heat from the light) but they are always able to right themselves. To reach the mesh roof Herp and Derp have to climb the back wall of the terrarium. I'm glad the styrofoam background can accommodate.
The next animal in my secret garden is "D", the giant African land snail (GALS). I raised him from an egg provided to me by my previous pair of snails, Dawn and Dusk. I don't have many photos of my snails, unfortunately, as I had them at a time when cameras were very difficult to use... they're still difficult to use but I'm improving. Dawn and Dusk were rehomed to a local school and now live happily with another GALS and two giant millipedes. I was able to get a single photo of Dusk that showed what a character he was:
Being a snail he decided to retract his antenna and stick his head through the hole in his plant pot cave... He looks rather like a giant ball of white snot (he was albino, Dawn was your typical brown GALS - the name is a paradox!) but I loved him nonetheless. I'll get some photos of "D", hopefully at his next bath and show you all just how gorgeous he is. His shell is about 8cm long but it's growing all the time. He loves to eat freshly harvested lettuce grown in a trough on my windowsill as well as cucumber and apple.
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