Figured I would post my biggest obsession along with Elder Scrolls and video games in general: Insects. Every summer I go outside for one reason only: Not to socialize with humans, but to catch buuuugs! Hahaha, kidding, but I do go outside a lot just to find, photograph, observe, catch and identify insects. I have a photo collection consisting of thousands of photos of insects of almost all types. Grasshoppers, mantises, flies, bees, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, wasps, ants, beetles, stink bugs, cicadas, crickets, roaches, walkingsticks, lacewings, etc. You name it, and it has six legs and a pair of antennae (I do photograph spiders and the occasional vertebrate, but I focus on insects), I most likely have a photo of it.

But, this thread isn't about the insects I go outside, find, catch, study and photograph. This is about the insects I keep as pets - raise from babies to advlt, nurture with plenty of TLC and of course photograph and videotape their curiosities.

In fact, the very motivation for me posting this thread is because a recent exciting event happened that I am excited about. In fact, it is so exciting, I'm going to hold off until later on in this thread to mention what that exciting thing was.

The most numerous insect I have in captivity are fruit flies of the species Drosophila melanogaster, flightless of course. These I feed to the tiniest mantises. Not counting them, at times it is probably crickets - Acheta domestica, sold at pet stores to feed to reptiles and tarantulas. I feed these to my mantises and also the Wheel bug I rescued from a near-freezing day in October that is still going strong.

Not counting any feeders, the most numerous insect would have been the cockroaches. Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and I'm too lazy to look up their scientific name. I don't bring them out to show people often, but I have 38 of these. Most of them are babies that are third or second instar (They molted once or twice since being born, that is). Some are a little larger from a previous birthing, and one from that litter (of 7, of which three are still alive) has become an advlt even bigger than his mother. Of the original six I got, two remain. The rest all came one morning from a now late female that looked really flat afterward. I think the stress of such a massive birthing was too much and a few days later she passed. These insects do lay eggs, specifically called oothecae (same term used for mantis egg-sacs) but in this species, they retract the ooth back into their abdomen and incubate it inside of them until the eggs hatch - Ovivaporous, a form of live birth.

Photos:
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0714001456a.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0709000348.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/1009091831.jpg trying to get a picture of his face. It's hard, they always look at the ground, very shy bugs they are.

Well, if considering by species, the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches are still in the lead, but in terms of Order, that is not the case.

That Order is not Orthoptera, which are grasshoppers, crickets and katydids. Well, maybe they are more numerous, but as I said I'm not counting the crickets, since they are feeders and their numbers fluctuate. I have a bunch of grasshoppers. During the summer and fall months I like to observe many species of Melanoplus in my yard. Melanoplus femurrubrum are the small ones with red legs, and M. differentialis are the big ones that can be a striking yellow, gray, pinkish-gray or brown as advlts. I currently have two of an unknown species, but I think they might be M. ponderosa, that I found in Georgia. I also have 10 little baby grasshoppers, both brown and green, of the Banded Wing variety. Species is unknown. I have two larger Banded Wing hoppers I found in the fall, they are probably the Carolina grasshopper that have black wings with a yellow band on the outside (thus the name, banded wing grasshoppers for this family). Lastly, my favorite species of grasshopper is Romalea guttata! The Eastern Lubber grasshopper. Most hoppers hop all the time, but these fellas chill wherever they are set on. The males are more curious and like to wander around, while the females are lumbering hulks that like to rest. The photos I have are of this species, although I have photos of most of the other species I mentioned.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0629001519.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0722001734.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0722001659.jpg

Names are Vaermina, Hircine and Azura respectively. I had 8 of this year's bunch, and named them all after Daedra lords. The other five were male: Sheogorath, Clavicus Vile, Molag Bal, Sanguine and Peryite.

Hoppers only live for about a year. Down to three of those 8. Now for the most numerous Order of insects in my collection, the title being earned just a day ago...

Praying mantises!

I have experience with 10 species in all. I can name them with Scientific names and in most cases common names as well.

The species I started out with was Tenodera sinensis, the Chinese mantis. Most of you have probably seen these kind if you live in the United States, they are found almost everywhere - introduced from China in the 1880s for garden pest control, they spread and have a strong population in the United States. They are "naturalized" and not considered invasive, but rather beneficial for keeping some pest insects away from your veggies.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0921091339a.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0808091333.jpg

One day by chance I saw a mantis, and http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0915091501b.jpg. This species is Mantis religiosa, the European mantis, also introduced but from Europe and by accident. They are the official state insect of Connecticut. The one I photoed eventually http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0915091500a.jpg and was tamed.

After a while, catching them in the wild was just not enough. Sometimes I'd bring in a mantis, it'd be late October, and already quite cold at night, and the mantis will have already been on its downward spiral to death. Insects, when they succumb to old age, do so quite gradually in general. Sometimes deterioration occurs months before, especially in the roaches - one female I had was slow and sluggish in April and gradually grew stiller and stiller until I found her dead in October. The roaches live up to five years... the other insects I have average about 9 months. In November of 2009, I received four little baby mantises of the species Hierodula membrenacea - the Giant Asian mantis. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/baby.jpg, but as time went by http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0202001406c.jpg until finally they were http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/Fortunewings.jpg. I got four more in January, 2010. One day the lone female of the 8 Giant Asians became advlt and http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/Kit.jpg. I tried breeding them but she died before laying any egg cases. In the summer these folks were in their old age days, with the oldest about 8 months old. One day it was down to one, a male named Nereid, who http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/Nereid.jpg in store.

When the Giant Asians were growing up, I wanted to relive the joy of raising baby mantises again. In the spring a few things happened - an egg case hatched, on my bedroom floor. I had forgotten about it, it was laid by Emerald (T. sinensis) the previous fall and I left it outside along with a second egg case both laid on the same stick. This one appeared dead, I examined it and it was hard as a rock and was quite chewed up by something. It still hatched, and I rounded up 26 little ones. Most I let go as soon as it got warm, some I sent to fellow mantis-keepers. Of the bunch I kept, one still remains. A green one, as green as Emerald, fat with an egg-case but she was never mated, so the eggs won't be fertile (Some species are parthenogenic, as in the eggs hatch without fertilization from a male. In fact, Brunner borealis, a long species of grass mantis found in the south and southwest, only has females! No males have ever been sighted of this species). The other thing that happened is I got more mantises of different types.

One was a species of mantis that at first were a mystery. They turned out to be http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0829001429.jpg, stockier and much more hyper than their Giant Asian cousins.

Some species I got females that were unmated and already advlt. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0415001745.jpg was one of my favorites and a species I hope to get again. I later got a male and http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0601000113.jpg but they didn't stay connected long enough and the eggs never hatched. The male's name was Casper, female was Chlo?.

Another species I got was http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/FloridaMantis.jpg, the Greater Florida mantis. She was quite a sweetie. This is the only species I have had that is native to the United States - Stagmomantis carolina is the state insect of South Carolina, and there are many species in the Stagmomantis genus that are found throughout the United States.

I raised a couple of http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0715000921a.jpg, but only one made it to advlt. They were a small species and this fella loved to fly.

One of the most stunning species I have had is Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii - the Spiny Flower mantis. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0425000118a.jpg and as they grow they get whiter and more colorful until they could camouflage themselves on a flower. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0527001224.jpg, especially with their pink eyes, and they http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/Flower.jpg. As advlts they http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0721001536.jpg that sometimes looks like a 9 or a q, thus the name "#9 mantises" that is sometimes applied.

Then there are the http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/1005002217.jpg. These are the Dead Leaf mantises, they have somewhat of a similar appearance to ghost mantises, especially with the http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/0918001408a.jpg. I had three as babies, one male and two female, and they reached advlthood with no problem. I mated the male with Angus, the one photographed (the other female's name is Gnarles and the male's name was Leather-Rebel). They were connected for 14 hours and the male was found later on in Angus's container as little brown pellets. Yes, unfortunately he was eaten afterward, but his legacy remains. Yesterday, an egg-case laid by Angus in the fall started to hatch. So far, there are 34, a number that may fluctuate if more hatch and some don't make it, but this brings the total number of mantises I have to around 43. 34 baby D. lobata, 2 advlt D. lobata (including their mother Angus who is going strong and might lay another egg-case soon!), 1 T. sinensis advlt and six nymphs of the species (my tenth species, btw) Rhombodera basalis, the Malaysian Shield mantis. Imagine the Dead Leaf mantises, but living leaves instead. http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/JoeCapricorn/1207002118.jpg and very cute, some already have a shield shape on their back, but they are more impressive when they are advlt. This video was not taken by me, but shows the reason why I got this species: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vz3nXe7zsc (Hint, the main reason is at 1:55)

So, those are my bugs.

Does anyone else like to keep bugs as pets?

I hate bugs, so I don't really need to answer about owning them, do I?

:sick:

Another insect enthusiast I see. I miss the old days of going over to my aunt's in Hackensack, NJ and bug-hunting in the backyard for all manner of creepy-crawlies. I also remember going to Florida when I was 14 and catching progressively bigger Lubber Grasshopper nymphs.

Wow,you're very enthusiastic about bugs! Those mantises are impressive. I'm usually ok about bugs- my only fears are roaches and wasps, so your pictures of the roaches made me squirm, literally. They just creep me out! I've never been scared of wasps because I'd never been stung until I woke up one day with one under the bedcovers with me!! It crawled up my leg, through my shorts (that was positively terrifying. I'd never actually squeaked in fear til that moment!) and onto my stomach where it stung me twice. It tried to sting me a third time but hit my belly bar thank goodness.
The photo of the mantis "greeting" you is very nice

Do you get many escapees?

This about sums my opinion as well.

We had a 4th grade science beetle pet thing and that thing creeped me out. I've been scarred ever since.

Gah! [censored]! roaches!!!! :flamethrower: but in all honesty the mantises were cool. :wink_smile:

:ninja: :yuck: Is fire an option for a pet here?

This.

Every night, I try not to think about spiders before going to bed. I swear those little [censored]ers are out to get me.

Living in Australia has made me paranoid and afraid of every insect,spider and reptile around me. I agree with the above sentiments of " :sick: "

Not as pets, but I remember in my young days catching Green June Beetles/Japanese Beetles/Figeater beetle/whatever te heck they are, tying a string to its rear leg and watch it fly around. When I get bored, I let it go.

I love the grasshoppers and mantises. Mantises? I'm not quite sure if that's the right plural... >.<


Anyhow, I've never actually seen a grasshopper that big... -_-;' ... I live in the middle of nowhere, where the most exciting critters I find are usually the very large and angry bees which chase me around my back yard while I mow the lawn.

I have been noticing an awful lot of toads around here though.


Maybe I'll start keeping toads...

... at least until I get somewhere where they have some cool bugs.

I would do this as a kid, then it was Insect Battle Royal time.

I once did that string thing with a male carpenter bee, the ones with yellow dots on their face. They don't sting and have really cute sometimes bright green eyes. I only did the bee-kite thing once, and afterward I carefully made sure all the string was taken off before letting it go.

At the Renaissance Faire, I found a poor bee that wasn't so lucky. Apparently someone did the bee kite thing, but tied the string around its neck. It was tangled in some Lavender and I clipped the string it but didn't have any sharp scissors with to carefully clip closer. Since it was also a male carpenter bee, no worries about it stinging, it was chilling on my finger almost as if it knew it was going to be rescued... but then the fella flew away, with part of the string still caught on him. The plan was to take him home, put him in the freezer for about three minutes to slow him down, then with a very sharp pair of scissors clip the string around his neck, or as close to it as possible, then keep him around until he perks back up and let him go.

In 2009 I got stung twice by bees I tried to rescue at the Rennaissance Faire (with all the flowers there, a major source of bugs, especially butterflies, skippers, clear-wing hummingbird moths, bees and wasps)

The roaches I have aren't a pest species. Only a few species around the world are pests that invade human dwellings, but there are 4000 species of roaches. Now, for the interesting part... mantises, roaches and termites are all sometimes considered "Dictyoptera", they have the same common ancestor. There are mantis species that are flatter and more roach like, and some proto-mantises were ancient cockroaches with mantis-claws. Termites are considered a sibling group to cockroaches, or a type of cockroach, depending on the taxonomy system. The reason why I was trying to take a picture of Shadow's face in the one photo is to show how similar their faces are with mantises. The eyes don't bulge out, but they both have triangular shaped faces and a circular or C shaped upper lip. The roaches have much larger maxillae (the four little fingery things around their mouth) and are predominantly herbivorous. Lastly, both roaches and mantises lay oothecae. Some mantis ooths look somewhat like roach ooths, but roach ooths don't have the foamy substance surrounding them (at least as far as I know).

Another interesting thing about the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, because of their hardiness, ease of care and ubiquity, they are the roaches most often used in Hollywood to portray the generic gross bug. In Sorcerer's Apprentice, when the first guy comes out of that statue thingy, he is formed from roaches of this species. The truth is, these bugs are some of the easiest to care for and cleanest pets I have. The hoppers poo big pellets, and the crickets smell bad. The mantises that are large enough to eat the crickets also tend to have smelly poo. The roaches, at least when I had just six advlts, don't poo that much. Even with 38 in their cage it is very easy to clean, since their poo are these round dots that roll out into the trash.

Can you guess what I study in college? If you guess insects, you are totally not correct! I wish there was an entomology class I could take as an elective, but I am studying digital media and computer science. This is a hobby and I loooove it!

Hey Robbio, the heaviest cockroach in the world lives in Queensland, they are called the Rhinoceros roach or the Giant Queensland Burrowing Cockroach. They live for up to 10 years and are quite massive in size, like a large reddish beetle. They reproduce very slowly and take years just to reach advlt-hood. I can say for certain that I will never be able to have these as pets, because the last time I saw them for sale, they were going for $900. Sometimes the insect hobby can get crazy.

Another cute video of a mantis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_jwfKyxBrc&feature=fvw (not mine) hymanopus coronatus is the Orchid mantis. One gorgeous mantis! The white saddle on her back, those are her wings. She will molt to an advlt soon, and I can tell because in this video her wing-buds are swollen and fanned out. See my picture above for a close-up of swollen wingbuds of a H. membrenacea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlgAB4W0TKI - Also not mine, but this mantis species is an Empusid, one of the hardest species to take care of. Idolomantis diabolica sounds like an awesome pet to have.

I think only Toxodera denticulata would be harder, as they need a huge amount of space since they get up to 8 inches long. Very skinny and stick-like though.


I do have a Youtube channel though, if you can guess my username on there you get an internet cookie.

Beautiful photos! I like the big grasshoppers, around here I've only seen ones that are like an inch long.

Maybe you can explain to me the mutant grasshopper I found when I was about 13. The damnable thing had a spike at the ends of it's body, and it [censored] bit me when I captured it, but beyond the fact that it bit me and it had a spike, it looked identical to any other grasshopper I'd ever seen(I was cruel, I'd catch them and throw them in ants nests after I stirred the ants up. Always figured me getting bit by the mutant was cosmic justice. But yeah, I've seen a ton of grasshoppers, so I'm fairly sure the mutant was one too).

Mantises are my favorite bugs! Very cool pictures.

The closest thing I ever had to an insect pet was when a fly kept sitting on my arm for ~3 hours (which included a half hour bicycle ride)

Sounds like you'd love http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BbVResGZnDo/S8d7j0TTROI/AAAAAAAACgM/fkX5Mp0DszU/s1600/giant-weta.jpg OP.

I forgot about weta. My family have done a lot of trekking round NZ, and if it ever involved caves of any sort, I'd be absolutely near tears, packing myself the entire time. Then I discovered we have them right here at our house, chilling in the ponga fence :yuck:

Really awesome post, full of information & beautifl pix :read: Wanna comment more but prolly again later when I haven't been up for 30 hrs straight.



:blush2:

Before reading the OP of crushing length, there are indeed some species ("sabre grasshoppers" is what I call them in my language) whose females have this, but they're unable to hurt anyone with it. Its purpose is to lay eggs iirc. So no worries, in fact they're quite nice and don't seem to be scared of nor agressive toward humans. When I first eno[censored]ered one of these I crapped my pants too, but it was just sitting there looking at me with these huge eyes. :lmao:

As a pet: I once had a spider I found someplace somehow. I tried to feed it flies, but after a short while I just felt like it be better to let it go. I'm sure I captured and kept some other little critters as well as a kid, but since that's so awfully long ago, it's hard to remember which ones.

After reading OP: nice grasshoppers and mantises, are you never afraid to hurt the latter by picking them up? I've heard it's not advised since they can get stuck with their spikes in your hand.

By the way, I just compared the fellas from the pics to my hand and I must conclude they're quite the jumbos. :blink:

Great, I would read this thread last night and have nightmares. <_<

Growing up in Yucatan, Mexico, I usually had one makech. A makech is a species of beetle, looks like sun-bleached wood with black legs. Mayas kept them as pets, and they would glue jewels on them, and the tradition has survived.

I have a dog who enjoys chasing and eating insects, but beyond that, my interaction with them ends. I had no idea that you could tame them, I always imagined they were too low a lifeform to handle like that.

I do have an agreement with the spider that lives on my window. I let it build its web on the only window in the house that' can't be washed by windowcleaners, and it keeps flies from entering my room. One time it came in and grabbed one by the leg. The noise of the fly trying to escape was so loud.

we get these little geckos that are clear and have some red in it and we let them roam the house cus they eat baby roaches. you dont even want to know what the majority of people do to possums.... :gun: