Hisserdude's Isopods

Cylisticus convexus "Normal" and "Pied":







Sadly, when isolated, the "Pied" specimens only produced normal looking offspring, and then I accidentally let their enclosure dry out, so I only have the normal color form of this species now.

Oniscus asellus "Normal":







Oniscus asellus " Orange-ish":







Oniscus asellus "Dalmatian":









Some of their offspring:





Porcellio diliatus:

Armadillidium vulgare:







Porcellio scaber "Normal":









Porcellio scaber "Pied":









Porcellio scaber "Orange":

Can I see a picture of the whole setup, all in one picture? I think these are super cool. I am trying to start one and would kind of like to see how you have yours all put together.

Oh well I keep each species and each color morph separate, I wouldn't want one species out competing the other. I also isolate each color morph, so that most of their offspring will carry their parent's traits.

Most of the cages look exactly the same, here's a picture of my normal Oniscus asellus enclosure:


All of their enclosures look pretty much like that, though some don't have any wood hides.

I like it, do you keep a lid on that, or can they not climb walls that well? Of course, since the setup's are fairly natural, I couldn't imagine why they would want to leave.

T.C. wrote:I like it, do you keep a lid on that, or can they not climb walls that well? Of course, since the setup's are fairly natural, I couldn't imagine why they would want to leave.

Yeah I keep lids on all their enclosures, if not to stop them escaping then to keep the humidity in, isopods are generally very sensitive to low humidity.

Trachelipus rathkii "Orange":







Porcellionides pruinosus:

They seem larger than the other two species? Is it just the photos or are they larger?

I think it's just the photos, they aren't too large, the biggest species in my collection are the Porcellio diliatus and Oniscus asellus, in that order.

Very nice photo`s and dedicated work.
Insect Rod,,

May I ask what type of camera you use?
Insect Rod

Hisserdude wrote:I think it's just the photos, they aren't too large, the biggest species in my collection are the Porcellio diliatus and Oniscus asellus, in that order.

Oh, ok. I have these Isopods, and they are lighter and browner in color. I am curious as to what species they are. If I could get a clear shot, do you think you could tell me what species you think they are since you appear to know a great deal on them.

Insect Rod wrote:Very nice photo`s and dedicated work.
Insect Rod,,

Insect Rod wrote:May I ask what type of camera you use?
Insect Rod

Thanks! I have an Olympus VG-160 and a Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS, in bright lighting I use the Olympus but lately I've been using the Canon, since you can use flash while taking a macro shot, unlike the Olympus.

T.C. wrote:
Oh, ok. I have these Isopods, and they are lighter and browner in color. I am curious as to what species they are. If I could get a clear shot, do you think you could tell me what species you think they are since you appear to know a great deal on them.

If you were to get a good shot then yeah, I could probably identify them for you.

I'm planning to start a fun little gene project using isopods soon and I would like to know which species would be best for playing around with genes? Like which species has a lot of known morphs that can easily be obtained? I wanna try and play around with Zebra Pills (If i can find someone who sells them and for a decent price) and get some funny stripes. Love the collection btw. How did you convince your peeps to let you get all those roaches in your other thread btw xD I'm still trying to convince my parents to let me get Little Kenyans for feeders lmao

Stugy wrote:I'm planning to start a fun little gene project using isopods soon and I would like to know which species would be best for playing around with genes? Like which species has a lot of known morphs that can easily be obtained? I wanna try and play around with Zebra Pills (If i can find someone who sells them and for a decent price) and get some funny stripes. Love the collection btw. How did you convince your peeps to let you get all those roaches in your other thread btw xD I'm still trying to convince my parents to let me get Little Kenyans for feeders lmao

Porcellio scaber is probably the best if you want to mess around with genes. They're readily available in the hobby and there are already several different colors and patterns that people have isolated or begun to isolate. Not much going on with the zebras as far as I know, other then one person working on brown instead of black and a couple people messing around with the stripes. That genus is also slower growing/reproducing than Porcellio, so projects tend to take quite a bit longer.

If you want little Kenyans I have tons and I'd be more than happy to thin the herd a bit.

Stugy wrote:I'm planning to start a fun little gene project using isopods soon and I would like to know which species would be best for playing around with genes? Like which species has a lot of known morphs that can easily be obtained? I wanna try and play around with Zebra Pills (If i can find someone who sells them and for a decent price) and get some funny stripes. Love the collection btw. How did you convince your peeps to let you get all those roaches in your other thread btw xD I'm still trying to convince my parents to let me get Little Kenyans for feeders lmao

I agree with Panna, Porcellio scaber is the best species for messing around with genes, there are a whole bunch of different color morphs in this species, more than any other commonly cultured isopod species I know of. Plus they are one of the easiest species to keep, and are pretty prolific and fast growing.

My mom is pretty cool, she's been very supportive of my interest in bugs since I was very little, and after seeing a hisser in person and realizing not all roaches are like the pest species, she let me keep several male hissers as pets, (only hissers though, nothing with wings), which was the beginning of an obsession lol! Now she doesn't really care what roaches I keep so long as it can't infest the house! So far the only thing off limits are scorpions, which she has a phobia of, but if I wanted some bad enough I'm sure I could persuade her to let me keep some.

What species is your avatar hisserdude?

mothman27 wrote:What species is your avatar hisserdude?

Not to steal his thunder or anything, but it's Paranauphoeta discoidalis, the discoidal assassin mimic roach. It's an awesome species that just got to the US hobby last year. Hoping that everyone keeping them has success so it can disperse throughout the hobby more!

mothman27 wrote:What species is your avatar hisserdude?

Like Panna king said, it is Paranauphoeta discoidalis, a beautiful new addition to the hobby that has proven to be rather easy to breed.

pannaking22 wrote:

mothman27 wrote:What species is your avatar hisserdude?

Not to steal his thunder or anything, but it's Paranauphoeta discoidalis, the discoidal assassin mimic roach. It's an awesome species that just got to the US hobby last year. Hoping that everyone keeping them has success so it can disperse throughout the hobby more!

Well I can't speak for everyone who has this species, but mine are doing very well, all my nymphs have matured, (albeit some with less than perfect wings due to me not giving them enough vertical space apparently), so I should be seeing more nymphs in the enclosure soon.

What would be a good species of roach that I can hold easily (on normal terms since I hear that roaches have personality. Oh yeah my scorpions do so why not roaches?)? It looks like I might be able to convince my parents to let me get at LEAST dubias but even that's turning out a lot harder than expected. I want to get a species that can be kept as a pet so maybe that'll help curing my own phobia of roaches. They are such beautiful animals yet I'm still terrified of them (especially when they are on their backs. I feel like throwing up when seeing that for some reason).

Stugy wrote:What would be a good species of roach that I can hold easily (on normal terms since I hear that roaches have personality. Oh yeah my scorpions do so why not roaches?)? It looks like I might be able to convince my parents to let me get at LEAST dubias but even that's turning out a lot harder than expected. I want to get a species that can be kept as a pet so maybe that'll help curing my own phobia of roaches. They are such beautiful animals yet I'm still terrified of them (especially when they are on their backs. I feel like throwing up when seeing that for some reason).

Something sizable that's good for handling would probably be peppered roaches, Archimandrita tesselata, or the various species of hissers.

Hisserdude wrote:

mothman27 wrote:What species is your avatar hisserdude?

Like Panna king said, it is Paranauphoeta discoidalis, a beautiful new addition to the hobby that has proven to be rather easy to breed.

pannaking22 wrote:

mothman27 wrote:What species is your avatar hisserdude?

Not to steal his thunder or anything, but it's Paranauphoeta discoidalis, the discoidal assassin mimic roach. It's an awesome species that just got to the US hobby last year. Hoping that everyone keeping them has success so it can disperse throughout the hobby more!

Well I can't speak for everyone who has this species, but mine are doing very well, all my nymphs have matured, (albeit some with less than perfect wings due to me not giving them enough vertical space apparently), so I should be seeing more nymphs in the enclosure soon.

Think you'll have a few extra nymphs to go around?

Stugy wrote:What would be a good species of roach that I can hold easily (on normal terms since I hear that roaches have personality. Oh yeah my scorpions do so why not roaches?)? It looks like I might be able to convince my parents to let me get at LEAST dubias but even that's turning out a lot harder than expected. I want to get a species that can be kept as a pet so maybe that'll help curing my own phobia of roaches. They are such beautiful animals yet I'm still terrified of them (especially when they are on their backs. I feel like throwing up when seeing that for some reason).

Any of the larger hisser species would be good candidates, however I've found that the roach that stays the most calm when being handled is Polyphaga saussurei, Saussure's giant sand roach. While it does not get as big as the hissers, it is a cute little roach that is extremely calm when handled, (at least as adults and older nymphs), and oftentimes they'll just sit there in the palm of your hand without moving much at all. They are also pretty easy to care for and are parthenogenic, so all you need is one individual to start a whole colony.

That's funny, I love the way roaches look from below, especially their faces. Polyphagid faces are particularly cute and rounded looking!

pannaking22 wrote:
Think you'll have a few extra nymphs to go around?

Hopefully once my new adults breed I will, the majority of them seem to be females, so I should get a good amount of nymphs from them.

I see that there are different colors of the same species. Is that some sort of gene experiment? I've never seen bright orange isopods in the wild, that's for sure!

Nathant wrote:I see that there are different colors of the same species. Is that some sort of gene experiment? I've never seen bright orange isopods in the wild, that's for sure!

You can find rather variable individuals in the wild, but to get vibrant colors like that takes some selective breeding. For instance, I just found two peach colored Armadillidium vulgare in my colony, so I separated them and am hoping to isolate that color over time.