Shrimp Puppy Chronicles

Rebooting my interest in isopods! • Aleris • @cosmicyeen @unidentifiedmammal

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Munch crunch

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La Creatura colony has new moss to snack on!

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this desk tank was the best idea ever. I can just look over every now and then and see a lil dude walkin around. Just exploring

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A hungry lad climbing grass stalks to get to some fish flakes

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Water oak acorn shenanigans in the roly poly terrarium

Three little "pumpkins" made from the cracked and peeled nutmeats, as well as a little potted plant made from a hollowed out shell + moss. Something simple and decorative!

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WE HAVE OUR FIRST CUSTOMER!

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the gang's all here

[unidentifiedmammal]

Water oak acorn shenanigans in the roly poly terrarium

Three little "pumpkins" made from the cracked and peeled nutmeats, as well as a little potted plant made from a hollowed out shell + moss. Something simple and decorative!

[unidentifiedmammal]

WE HAVE OUR FIRST CUSTOMER!

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New mini tank! I took advantage of a secondhand 1/2 gallon "betta" tank (which is absolutely not for bettas please never put a fish in this size container) but i added soil/rotting wood/etc as well as a few roly polys, so lets see how they do! Bonus photo of a recently gifted dracaena plant behind it.

I went to check if any of the A. nasatum could be found, but i think it's too cold to find them now. So i grabbed a few A. vulgare from my main downstairs tank!

the tiny leaves are some fresh white oak branch sprouts that fell off in the spring and i pressed them, i've been slowly giving them to the roly polys as snacks. Same with the corn cobs of seed corn i grew!

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the Good Lads

the terrarium/vivarium/whatever you call it is lookin good, lots of big and small rolys and i could even see some springtails! I havent seen the sun beetles in a while, though

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Newly updated terrarium, bow with plants and everything! Hopefully gonna stay at least somewhat green ^^; now with A. Vulgare, one lone A. Nasatum Sun beetles, and a few very tiny millipedes! the plants are rosette grass and spleenwort, mosses are miscellaneous.

even if they don't take hold, they'll still be good detritus

look at this little guy! just under an inch long. I find them every now and then in the yard.

I also found some other nasatums outside, including some brown ones! they're not as prevalent ever since we moved the compost pile, but they're still there and i hope to get a good number of them again, including full orange ones!

i also like this picture right here; it looks like I could stylize it into a cool painting

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Some cool lads 😎

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I don't think i ever shared the little cellar spider that's in the container here! At one point fruit flies got in, so i grabbed a spider from the walls and added it. Now the spider's all happy, and the fruit flies are gone!

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Here's the container right now, i've been increasing the sticks/leaves/fun objects/slow snacks gradually. I feel like the container's plastic milkiness is just a permanent feature due to age, unfortunately.

The gourd is a decorative one that i hollowed out and dried, although i might have to take it out and clean it if it molds. Springtails should be in there but i doubt they'll climb up to an exposed smooth surface.

they often like to climb up on these and other sticks, which offers a good way to see them. But I'll also see them crawling around sometimes! they mostly stay deep in the litter and under things

Also, here's a very tiny one ! A freshly hatched fella. Fun fact, the youngest rolly pollies are called "mancas," and they have only six pairs of legs/segments and get their seventh after they molt!

They hatch live from a pouch ("marsupium") on the underside of the mother, and are ready to go around right off the bat (but are still more prone to desiccation than an adult)

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A couple photos of some Poly Rollies!

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Roly poly habitat, not completely updated but i wanted to show some of the stuff i've been adding to it.

I added a plant from the flower beds; it's dead by now but was pretty while it lasted. The decomposing plant will also be a fun food source.

Roly polies will also ear more than dead plants, they can eat young shoots, poop (including their own), snakeskin, even scraps of animals and bugs! Any detritus that's got all the nutrients covered, they go for happily. Hell, I've seen them munching on scraps of chipmunk paws.

I got mine from the chicken coop, where they had made a hiding eating a bunch of layer hen feed that got thrown under a hiding spot. So hopefully this will be a bit more nutritious for them, although layer feed is pretty good!

I've also added a few wild springtails, i was only able to find a few but i will keep an eye out for more. I'm sure theres a few other beneficial critters in there as well.

Finally, I'll show a closeup of the roly poly sticker i have, gotten from redbubble some years back!

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Beckon to the sky!

I added an oak knot hiding spot that i'd had sitting around for several years. It'd been cut off of a downed post oak and crudely hollowed out. The outside was sanded to look smoother and has beautiful swirls!

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Roly poly throwback from 2018/19 colonies (shown on IG)

Cool individuals and groups, wild caught

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I found a bunch of rolly pollies in my chicken run, and since the chickens wpuldve eaten then npw that ive moved the hiding place around, i gathered a ton of them!

Interestingly, it was all armadillidium vulgare, except for a single porcellio sp. which i havent seen here before! Sadly didnt get a photo but its somewhere in the habitat.

I cleaned out my old rolly polly container from a while back, and added:

dried corn silks & husks

dried japanese stiltgrass

snakeskin from pet snake

dried magnolia flower sheaths

dead magnolia leaves

dried daffodil leaves

dryrotted water oak wood

fresh grass clippings

sprinklings of the dirt from under the shelter that got moved

rose campion seed pods

crushed up cicada shells

I'm still gonna add more things like big hunks of wood to hide under, eggshells, oak leaves, etc. but for now i'm interested to see what they do with this! It's definitely not a default substrate for them. Now to find some springtails...

Gonna be feeding them bits of fishfood as well. I'll also be on the lookout for the lone porcellio for IDing, and id also love to get a new A. Nasatum habitat going again!

Anyways, thats my first post here, kicking off part two of a journey into isopods that i started on instagram many years ago!