WarrenB
Fourth Instar
Or: 'nuther Northern Ireland newbie. 
Hello all. I'm Warren. I used to keep exotic pets years ago, starting with garter snakes and some amphibians, moving onto inverts like tarantulas, scorpions, phasmids, and other insects and arachnids. In terms of roaches I've kept Gromphidorhina portentosa, Archimandrita tesselata, Nauphoeta cinerea, Blatta lateralis, and Blaberus discoidales.
Like I said, that was years ago. I cleared out all I had and moved onto other interests; but lately I've been thinking of keeping just a few bugs again, especially some peppered roaches. Those seem to have become scarce in the UK&I side of things, so I've restarted with a tub of foolproof* dubias - partly pets (a pet tub of coir so far...), partly feeders for any carnivorous thing I buy in future. Peppered roaches are still the holy grail, but lurking around here I'm impressed by the sheer range of cultured species I hadn't heard of before.
* We'll see if they survive this fool, though.
I'm also surprised - but interested - to see a surge of popularity of isopods, in the meantime. Back when I last looked, it was Trichorhina tomentosa or some 'nameless grey things' from outdoors as cleanup crews for tarantulas, and little else. (I might've been spectacularly unobservant, though) In the last few days I've been goggling at photos of yellow-spotted, zebra-striped, and bright orange examples, and reading up on local species and their identification. Turns out I live just a few miles from one of the more isolated sightings of Androniscus dentiger in Northern Ireland, though I've never seen one. I would've remembered! Time for a bug hunt.
Hello all. I'm Warren. I used to keep exotic pets years ago, starting with garter snakes and some amphibians, moving onto inverts like tarantulas, scorpions, phasmids, and other insects and arachnids. In terms of roaches I've kept Gromphidorhina portentosa, Archimandrita tesselata, Nauphoeta cinerea, Blatta lateralis, and Blaberus discoidales.Like I said, that was years ago. I cleared out all I had and moved onto other interests; but lately I've been thinking of keeping just a few bugs again, especially some peppered roaches. Those seem to have become scarce in the UK&I side of things, so I've restarted with a tub of foolproof* dubias - partly pets (a pet tub of coir so far...), partly feeders for any carnivorous thing I buy in future. Peppered roaches are still the holy grail, but lurking around here I'm impressed by the sheer range of cultured species I hadn't heard of before.
* We'll see if they survive this fool, though.
I'm also surprised - but interested - to see a surge of popularity of isopods, in the meantime. Back when I last looked, it was Trichorhina tomentosa or some 'nameless grey things' from outdoors as cleanup crews for tarantulas, and little else. (I might've been spectacularly unobservant, though) In the last few days I've been goggling at photos of yellow-spotted, zebra-striped, and bright orange examples, and reading up on local species and their identification. Turns out I live just a few miles from one of the more isolated sightings of Androniscus dentiger in Northern Ireland, though I've never seen one. I would've remembered! Time for a bug hunt.
