Isopod Hobby

B

Bamboo

Fifth Instar
I am curious when did the isopod hobby start. For some reason I thought it really began and took off over the past 5 yrs. 

What were some of the orginal morphs? 

I assume it all started in the UK? 

 
Someone in the USA wrote a book about the isopod hobby 5 years ago. There is evidence the isopod hobby started in the late 1990's in the United States with a hobbyist who isolated orange Porcellio from Spain and offered them for terrarium keepers regularly in the US arthropod hobby circuit, but there really was no hobby before the 2013 Isopods in Captivity book. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bamboo said:
I am curious when did the isopod hobby start. For some reason I thought it really began and took off over the past 5 yrs. 

What were some of the orginal morphs? 

I assume it all started in the UK? 
Click to expand...
IMcoverSept04small.JPG
There is an article, called Terrestrial Isopods, in the Sept. 2004 Invertebrates-Magazine (pages 9-12) about keeping isopods as pets in the United States. The orange form of Porcellio scaber is featured (2004 cover posted here), but the article also discusses the 'calico' form of the same species, white micropods, a few normal species and the iridovirus. The article conclusion: "Terrestrial Isopods have grown common as 'cleanup crew' and are gaining popularity as feeders for certain animals. However, unless someone finds a large species or can figure out how to grow them to 2" (even 1" would be great), they'll never become a popular pet. Still, there are some interesting species and the orange and blue forms are attractive."

The same article was greatly expanded and added to for the isopod section in the 2011 book, Invertebrates for Exhibition. The same person wrote the 2004 article, the 2011 I4E chapter, the small paperback Isopods in Captivity early 2013, and the large Isopod hardcover book published late 2013.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I strongly suspect people have been keeping isopods for decades. It's certainly gotten more common more recently, but I don't think people liking them is anything new. There's probably always been a few oddballs in any given population who like to keep bugs. People have certainly been keeping jars of pillbugs for longer than 14 years. I had a book somewhere about keeping pets in jars that was published in, I checked, 1979, and it has an entry on pillbugs. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Betta132 said:
I strongly suspect people have been keeping isopods for decades. It's certainly gotten more common more recently, but I don't think people liking them is anything new. There's probably always been a few oddballs in any given population who like to keep bugs. People have certainly been keeping jars of pillbugs for longer than 14 years. I had a book somewhere about keeping pets in jars that was published in, I checked, 1979, and it has an entry on pillbugs. 
Click to expand...
The original post asked when the  "isopod hobby" started, not when the first human kept a wild isopod as a pet. I imagine that could have been ten thousand years ago, give or take all of history.  There may be centurions alive today who kept an isopod when they were five. I believe I understood the question of the original poster but maybe your answer is the one requested.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, how do you define the isopod hobby? Did it start when someone started keeping them? Did it start when a kid first traded some of their isopods to someone else? With the first person who had multiple different kinds? 

If a kid goes into their yard and picks up some isopods to keep, are they an isopod hobbyist? Does it have to involve communication from others to count? 

 
The book is called "Pets in a Jar" by Seymour Simon, and I gave it away last year to a little girl interested in bugs, so I unfortunately don't have a quote. It's out of date, and among other things claims that you should be able to keep a starfish alive in a gallon jar, but the care info for most of the land animals isn't bad. 

Online, I found mention of "Pet Bugs" (Sally Kneidel, 1994) and "The Pillbug Project" (Robin Burnett, 1992) to add to that.

 
I think the oldest book with a few paragraphs I have is from 1989. I don't consider someone explaining how to keep isopods in a jar is even remotely evidence of an actual hobby, but I am interested in finding the oldest source I can.

 
Which I guess brings us back to the question of what DO you consider the isopod hobby to be? I literally don't know how someone would define it. 

 
But that's not a definition. That's "here's when I think it started", not "here's what it is". Unless I'm misreading?

 
Betta132 said:
The book is called "Pets in a Jar" by Seymour Simon, and I gave it away last year to a little girl interested in bugs, so I unfortunately don't have a quote. It's out of date, and among other things claims that you should be able to keep a starfish alive in a gallon jar, but the care info for most of the land animals isn't bad. 
Click to expand...
I bought a copy of that book and there is NO mention of isopods, not a single word. I wish I hadn't bought it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top