Isopods, Spiders, and More!

 Hi everyone. Haven't posted anything in a while but I have some things so yeah.

These are Bowie cf. crystaljapan. If that sounds familiar then...

There's a song by David Bowie named Crystal Japan 🙈

But anyway, they are wandering spiders and I have just collected two.

Bowie cf. crystaljapan adult/sub-adult

This one is significantly larger than the other, and I have just caught these guys three days ago in a town called Berastagi. (There is a previous post of mine about it)

I also took a juvenile.

Bowie cf. crystaljapan juvenile

When I first saw them, I thought they were a Lycosid. But they were lacking the large Lycosid eyes and could climb significantly better than my other Lycosids that I was already keeping.

I found them inhabiting areas with a lot of foliage and moist, humid substrate in darker areas. I tried to replicate that with their enclosure.

In the same location I found the two wandering spiders, I collected a lot of isopods, the species is unknown but they are Burmoniscus.

Burmoniscus sp. (In their collection container)

They're active, fast, and.. fairly large for a Burmoniscus.

They also have a (in my opinion) really pretty looking white head. Sort of like a mask.

I am keeping them in a 32oz thinwall food container with ventilation holes drilled in it (of course)

Burmoniscus sp. enclosure 

I tried replicating what they were found in.

Some broken bark, leaf litter, rotten wood, and stuff like that as shown.

Of course, I added sphagnum moss for a hydration station.

Burmoniscus sp. In their enclosure

Some specimens do have black heads and slightly orange antennae like shown above.

Maybe I should isolate them?

Before we move on to more isopods, let me show you more inverts from Berastagi.

Eparchus insignis

cf. Aspidimorpha sp.

Trochosa cf. ruricoloides

Camponotus sp.

Nihonhimea tesselata

Tetragnatha montana (a really plump one!)

Pycnoscelus cf. indicus

Nesticodes rufipes 

Now let's move on to some new isopods I just got yesterday.

I received 5 different species.

This is Nagurus cristatus, a species that is slowly gaining popularity in the hobby. They are more commonly known as the Dwarf Gray-Striped Isopod. They are really small, as their name suggests, they're a dwarf species.

Nagurus cristatus

They are beautiful. I've been wanting to keep this species since I found out about them. Hopefully they will breed well for us! From my past experience with Nagurus species, they are pretty prolific. Hopefully the same applies on this one!

They are pretty secretive, definitely much more than Nagurus nanus, which I have bred in the past.

Previously, I showcased a Burmoniscus species. I had also received another Burmoniscus species in the same package, this time Burmoniscus javanensis. They are very secretive at a small colony amount (like most other isopods) but like other Burmoniscus they are fast and fragile, so it was really hard to get a good photo.

Burmoniscus javanensis 

This was the best photo I could get. This little one immediately went to munch on cuttlebone, but when I tried to get a picture is scurried away under it.

No problem, I hope when the colony grows we can see a lot roaming around!

This one is a staple species in the hobby. Very readily available, able to conglobate, and pretty prolific from what I've heard from other keepers/breeders.

They are of course, Cubaris murina!

Cubaris murina

The one above also immediately started to munch on the cuttlebone. They were really hungry for it haha 😆 

Next one is probably very familiar to you guys.

Porcellionides pruinosus

They're the powder isopods! Porcellionides pruinosus. I got two color morphs, powder orange, and powder blue. 

I actually was supposed to get an orange variant of Nagurus nanus for the powder oranges, but I guessed the seller mislabeled it because they look nothing and are a lot larger than Nagurus should be.

They do look a lot like P. pruinosus, but maybe if any of you have other opinions, please feel free to tell me in the comments. That will be greatly appreciated. 🙏

And that's all for today's post. I hope you enjoyed reading and goodbye! 👋