Waterless "fishes": how an unusual insect-keeper thinks

[fat meloe!]

Despite the popularity of captive fishes and general terror of "bugs", I have found that there are many similarities between the two.

First, an introduction to my world:

In a considerable part of the world, insects are often considered to be mostly "pests" and thought of as "disgusting" and often "dangerous", despite large amounts of evidence showing otherwise. Somehow, cats and dogs, which can be much more destructive than many insects under certain circumstances, are beloved and cherished (not that we should hate them), but poisons have been suggested for killing crickets when they merely annoy people with their chirping. This mentality has apparently contributed to non-"pests" being ignored by many people.

The NANFA organization focuses on aquarium fishes native to North America, which are often dull-colored when compared to tropicals. However, the number of insect keepers in the entire US which keep smaller and less flashy species can probably be counted on two hands, and my friend has probably broken several world records by merely photographing his pets. Still, despite their unappealing attributes, many of them are extremely fascinating to observe. They seem like terrestrial aquarium fishes, and some could easily become topsellers at the pet shop if people wanted them.

Stay tuned for more, but feel free to comment.

[fat meloe!]

Here is what an average day is like:

I wake up after dreaming about finding the breeding grounds of a 1-cm, drab-looking black beetle (genus Coniontis, probably) again. Despite being so poorly known that there are just a few sentences about its biology online (and mostly in esoteric research articles), I have been dreaming about it constantly for several months. After feeding the fishes and mentally "scolding" the green fruit scarab (Cotinis mutabilis) for being so messy that I have to replace its caging nearly every day and lose sleep over the duty, I head off to do "normal" and necessary things for the day.

Later in the day, I do some research on a colorful plant bug. Many stink, seed, shield, and plant bugs are coated in various patterns of black, orange, and/or red to warn predators of inedibility, but few people seem to have interest in keeping them alive. I search for Largus californicus, and the only information covering husbandry is, of course, just another pdf by researchers. Of course, none of the taxonomy and scientific terms deters me, as I specialize in eating scientific articles, which are often the only source of adequate nutrition for obscure insect (and rare catfish) keepers. Of course again, another stupid pest-control advertisement pops up simply because I searched for an insect, even though reputable sources insist Largus does no harm.

As the sun has begun to set, I feed an organic baby-carrot chunk to the solitary Coniontis in my jar. I used to stay up late in order to watch the shy insect, but it often walks around in the late afternoon as well. I stopped trying to locate wild ones in my own yard, because quite a few inconsiderate vertebrates have decided to leave tiny droppings throughout the insect's habitat.



Note: due to security issues I may not appear on PlCatfish much until issues are fixed. Comments still welcome, but may not be answered immediately.

[characinkid]

Great topic...

My mother used to keep wood eating Beatles.. they we're fascinating to watch their behavior!!

Lots of interesting sp. out there with as many different behaviors as our watery friends..

[fat meloe!]

My mother used to keep wood eating Beatles

There are a ton of different and unrelated wood-eating beetles, so I'm not sure which ones.

I'm guessing the ones she kept were Odontaenius disjunctus bess beetles. These are extremely well-known as pets, and even Carolina Biological Supply sells them alive. Also, there is a considerable lack of information on many non-"pest" woodeaters, which makes the beetle's identity as disjunctus quite likely.



And yes, the wide variety of different insect spp. is quite interesting. Like I said, there is so little information out there for many pet "bugs" that are not big, popular, and flashy, like tarantulas, mantises, and scorpions, so anyone dealing with them can discover something unknown to science itself and break many world records with almost no effort.

Of course, the lack of information is a double-edged sword: instead of easily obtaining information from a website like "PlanetTenebrionidae .com", I have to use guesswork, assumptions, and esoteric research to even care for such unconventional insects, especially if no other keepers have kept them (care sheets have been made by hobbyists for slightly more popular species). Many of them prove ridiculously easy to keep in spite of this, but serious mistakes can happen under some circumstances and kill or severely hurt the insect. Both the green fruit scarab (Cotinis mutabilis; make sure not to confuse with Cotinis nitida, a similar-looking creature) and I have suffered many sleepless nights until I finally realized (with the help of an unusual-insect keeper expert's book) that the humidity was too low and I stopped worrying enough to fall asleep.