Monday, September 7, 2009

Male Emperor Matures

Last night I scanned over a few tanks with my blacklight and discovered a disheveled pile of exoskeleton in my subadult emperor tank. I momentarily thought that one of my males had been cannibalized, but my fiancee thought it looked more like a molt (she was right).

I'd noticed a few weeks ago that one of them was getting incredibly fat and heading for a molt. It seems as though I was right! Unfortunately, he's too far back in the burrow to get a good look at, and the tankmates trampled the exuvium to the point that it's not worth displaying.

The female I recently acquired (see two posts down) seems to be doing better with her grain mites. Most wild-caught emperors seem to give birth in the spring, so if she hasn't had a brood by then, I'll try putting a male in with her. (Hopefully the other two will mature by then to improve the odds.)

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