# Harbinger's freaky ass pets



## Harbinger (Apr 27, 2014)

Thought i'd make a thread for the lot of them seeing as i've took way too many pics lately 
Plus i guess i could update it with whatever's hatched/moulted/shagged/fed/brought i guess 
Start off with my best shot of some of the rare highlights i keep. My  goal is to get enough freaky and rare species breeding to sell at the  biggest invertebrate exhibition in the uk in October.

Here's my latest purchase, pretty damn rare and relatively new to the hobby.







Orchid mantis, male of the pair.






Desert pebble mantids, these really are freaky mantids, extremely fast aswell, and rare.






Giant spiny assassin bugs which are very rare in the UK, got them shipped over from Europe, spent a lot on these in the hopes of getting them breeding, got 13.






Also got an adult pair of stag beetles 






And the Costa Rican katydids are still doing well, bred them a couple of generations now.






Got plenty more, about 40-50 species, hopefully even more at the next show in May


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## Alexxx-Returns (Apr 27, 2014)

You have the coolest pets. The mantids in particular look awesome.


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## Krysch (Apr 27, 2014)

Mantids are pretty amazing, good luck for the exhibition


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## FangWarrior (Apr 27, 2014)

They are pretty freaky, wow, and pretty interesting!

well good luck on your collection! Maaannn I like them all, the first pic is pretty cool.


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## Harbinger (Apr 29, 2014)

Thanks all 
Had a rough count up just now.

54 species 0_0

And here's a quick baby stick insect, this species is a monster, its still very young and already as big as a half grown other stick insect.


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## Greatodyer (Apr 30, 2014)

Wow, they are awesome insects!


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## TransformerRobot (Apr 30, 2014)

These insects are freaking awesome!! 

What are the first ones at the top?


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## Harbinger (May 2, 2014)

A Madagascan spiny, very rare


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## dinosaurdammit (May 2, 2014)

you should trade pets with me


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## Batty Krueger (May 2, 2014)

That first one is damn cool looking


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## Harbinger (May 2, 2014)

dinosaurdammit said:


> you should trade pets with me



Trade ya some Phyllium jacobsoni for a a Macrochelys temminckii if you got any 
And if y'all like the big and spiny ones you dont get much bigger and spinier than Jungle nymphs. They are just monsters, they are huge, they only reach about 16cm in body length but they are massively wide and thick, and heavily armoured.
Got 3 pairs, 2 of the females are sub adult and they are already the biggest species i have at the minute (although the one i pictured about gets over 20cm).
Anyway here's the biggest jungle nymph.


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## Harbinger (May 3, 2014)

And here's a relative of the jungle nymph, the wood nymph.






Wood nymphs are one of the few stick insect genus's you can get more of one species of in captivity, they start off rare and get rarer, i've managed to track down 6, there's one more species left, the rarest.

The giant spiny assassin bugs are doing well, a few are moulting now, for a short time after they moult they are strawberry red all over.


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## Batty Krueger (May 3, 2014)

I love mantids, only bug I dont mind running around on me.


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## Harbinger (May 5, 2014)

How about metallic ones?






Also my Dead leaf mantis played dead the other day and landed like this, think she wanted me to draw her like one of my french girls.


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## TransformerRobot (May 5, 2014)

Metallic insects eh?






Couldn't resist. XD


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## Alexxx-Returns (May 5, 2014)

My god, evolution is such a badass. That last mantid looks AMAZING!


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## Kangamutt (May 5, 2014)

Goddamn, Harb, these things are amazing.


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## Tica (May 5, 2014)

Can you take a picture of your setup? Like, where all the tanks and stuff are? I'm interested to see it


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## Hjoldir-Hildwulf (May 5, 2014)

Here's a question for You Harbinger, I've got two pairs of Heteropteryx dilatata  (L3-L4), I've been feeding them on a mix of rhamnum and hedera helix over the winter, but now spring has sprung I've moved them onto just crataegus monogyna. Do you think I should keep up the variety, or leave them to what they're used to?


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## Batty Krueger (May 5, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> How about metallic ones?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As long as they arent bitey, lol.


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## Harbinger (May 5, 2014)

Hjoldir-Hildwulf said:


> Here's a question for You Harbinger, I've got two pairs of Heteropteryx dilatata  (L3-L4), I've been feeding them on a mix of rhamnum and hedera helix over the winter, but now spring has sprung I've moved them onto just crataegus monogyna. Do you think I should keep up the variety, or leave them to what they're used to?



Holy shit another phasmid keeper 
I havent heard of anyone keeping Heteropteryx on those foodplants, i know people try ivy with Eurycantha and Carausius before. I think most phasmids are fine on a staple foodplant, i havent noticed any harm in feeding them just bramble or whatever is i they feed on. Mine still get a bit of variety though, when i forget to bramble i top them off with some rose from the garden.
Bramble usually doesnt die off completely here in the UK so there should be some of that around aswell.
Keep any other species?
Got my first adult Heteropteryx the other day funnily enough, a male 






And batty, the dessert pebble mantids are crazy, never had a mantis try to eat me so much.


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## Batty Krueger (May 5, 2014)

Eep. Is that the metallic one?


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## Hjoldir-Hildwulf (May 5, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> Holy shit another phasmid keeper
> I havent heard of anyone keeping Heteropteryx on those foodplants, i know people try ivy with Eurycantha and Carausius before. I think most phasmids are fine on a staple foodplant, i havent noticed any harm in feeding them just bramble or whatever is i they feed on. Mine still get a bit of variety though, when i forget to bramble i top them off with some rose from the garden.
> Bramble usually doesnt die off completely here in the UK so there should be some of that around aswell.
> Keep any other species?
> Got my first adult Heteropteryx the other day funnily enough, a male



Thanks for the advice  I like to try and mix their feed up a bit, but too much might be a tad on the overkill side of things.

He's a bit of a looker  I've a Young lady who'd love to meet him.

When I was a bit younger I used to keep Extatosoma tiaratum & Phylliidae, but I was always more of a lepidopterist. Ah the fantaboulous moths I've kept over the years. I miss the Attacus Atlas like you wouldn't believe. I also used to own a lovely Grammostola Pulchr. She was a darling. I had to give her to a friend when I worked at sea though. Sad times.

I also keep these darlings regularly.


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## Harbinger (May 5, 2014)

Sphinx ligustri?
Nice 
I've tried a few moths but i havent had any success with them, here's an old pic from a while ago now with my old digital camera.






And missed your post Tica, here's some very outdated photo's but its the same kinda arrangement, i sleep on the top bunk whilst some vivs and tanks are on the bottom. Between the cupboard and bed are some beetle tub stacks, there's a new shelf above my bed with spiders and there's the shelf crammed with various frogs and phasmids 
Once its all cleaned up again i'll get some updated pics.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/invertsfromhell/5426496670/in/set-72157612818502544
https://www.flickr.com/photos/invertsfromhell/5782540857/in/set-72157612818502544

And yeah when you're changing or adding foodplants with anything you want to have both options available to ween them onto the new addition, plus they might not take to it.

Also got some Phyllium myself at the minute, P.jacobsonii, really need to get P.gigantium again though, they are amazing and i did really well them ^_^






And no Batty these are the dessert ones who try to eat me.


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## TransformerRobot (May 5, 2014)

Trade pets? TRADE them?

But what about their attachments to you?


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## Harbinger (May 5, 2014)

Bro do you even pokemon?
I usually only trade animals i've bred myself, so that way i still have the same species and a chance of getting a new one.


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## TransformerRobot (May 5, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> Bro do you even pokemon?
> I usually only trade animals i've bred myself, so that way i still have the same species and a chance of getting a new one.



Yeah, but Pokemon is just a video game, this is with real bugs, real animals.


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## Harbinger (May 6, 2014)

And no harm comes to them, unfortunately they dont evolve when traded though.


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## Hjoldir-Hildwulf (May 6, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> Sphinx ligustri?
> Nice
> I've tried a few moths but i havent had any success with them, here's an old pic from a while ago now with my old digital camera.



But of course 

I can't place your moth, is it a relation to Opodiphthera eucalypti?

I have to say Harbinger, after looking at your room, you're giving me buffalo bill vibes from The Silence of the Lambs... :V


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## Harbinger (May 6, 2014)

Hahah you should have seen it when i had about 40 Acheronia atropos 
Didnt managed to get them breeding though which was a major annoyance.
The moth pictured was a Antherina suraka, think if i try moths again it'll be when i have enough privet growing and i can get some Atlas's


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## Hjoldir-Hildwulf (May 6, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> Hahah you should have seen it when i had about 40 Acheronia atropos
> Didnt managed to get them breeding though which was a major annoyance.
> The moth pictured was a Antherina suraka, think if i try moths again it'll be when i have enough privet growing and i can get some Atlas's



Called it! Just don't go offering people any lotion and we'll be fine and dandy :V

Ah Acherontia Atropos, a biter if ever there was one. I love the noise the moth makes, sounds remarkably like a dog toy 

Oh a Suraka Silk moth, well I wasn't too far off, they're both part of the Saturniidae genus after all 

You'll enjoy the Atlas moths! Dusty, fat caterpillars though! They get through some bloody privet -_-


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## TransformerRobot (May 6, 2014)

Harbinger said:


> And no harm comes to them, unfortunately they dont evolve when traded though.



What about emotional harm? Or do insects have emotions like everything and everyone else does?


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## Hjoldir-Hildwulf (May 6, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> What about emotional harm? Or do insects have emotions like everything and everyone else does?



I'll tell you about emotional harm. Raising beautiful Saturnia Pavonia from eggs, only to let them be free once they're old enough, they never come back... :'(


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## Harbinger (May 6, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> What about emotional harm? Or do insects have emotions like everything and everyone else does?



There isnt any harm done, they are swapped between experienced keepers. When you breed them you cant possible keep every single one when you have multiple species producing hundreds of offspring each.


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## CaptainCool (May 6, 2014)

TransformerRobot said:


> But what about their attachments to you?





TransformerRobot said:


> What about emotional harm? Or do insects have emotions like everything and everyone else does?



They are insects. Bugs are robots, they literally don't have emotions.
By saying they are robots I mean that they are so simple that they are purely driven by instincts. Only their natural "programming" tells them how they have to act.
For example, try approaching a cockroach with a vaccum cleaner from behind. It will turn around and run straight into it! Why? Because its instincts tell it that air running over its body from the front to the back means that someone is breathing on it from the front. It's a bug in the bug's coding so to say


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## Harbinger (May 6, 2014)

A lot of insects are also hard wired to face every direction but the camera lens -_-


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## mcjoel (May 6, 2014)

when i was a kid i had a black widow.


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## Harbinger (May 6, 2014)

Nice, was that wild caught where you were from im guessing?
I wouldnt mind having one of the nicer patterned species but you need a DWA license for them over here.


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## mcjoel (May 6, 2014)

wild, caught her living in our garage she had her for a couple months then I released her.


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## Misomie (May 7, 2014)

Nice pets. 

@mcjoel- I've kept jumping spiders as a kid but recently had a pet cockroach (Pickles) and a giant widow I caught at school (Midnight). It's been awhile but I think my roach ended up living a year and the widow two years (actually, maybe 3. I caught her in eighth grade and had her until 11th?) . Once she got old she stopped eating. It was pretty sad to watch her deteriorate like that. I'd even make the bugs super easy to catch but she just lost her appetite. :<


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## Verok (May 7, 2014)

Misomie said:


> Nice pets.
> 
> @mcjoel- I've kept jumping spiders as a kid but recently had a pet cockroach (Pickles) and a giant widow I caught at school (Midnight). It's been awhile but I think my roach ended up living a year and the widow two years (actually, maybe 3. I caught her in eighth grade and had her until 11th?) . Once she got old she stopped eating. It was pretty sad to watch her deteriorate like that. I'd even make the bugs super easy to catch but she just lost her appetite. :<



That reminds me, a few years ago I used to have a cockroach that lived in my bathroom. Don't know why I didn't kill it at first sight. Anyways, every time I went to the bathroom at night, I would see it scurrying around on the floor. Once it saw me, it was like "oh crap! " and would run as fast as it could into a small gap (probably it's 'house' or whatever roaches call it) below the door frame. This routine kept on happening for months, until one day it never showed-up. I don't know if it died or just moved away, but in some ways I still miss that magnificent little bastard.


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## Harbinger (May 17, 2014)

I got some fancy roaches myself, although dont see them much as they're secretive burrowers.
In other news, my most expensive mantis moulted to adult the other day, the colouration is unfreakinbelievable, photo's really dont do her justice.
Depending on the angle her wings can be red, orange, yellow, or green and were even purple just after she matured.






Check out my gallery to see her other colours.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/invertsfromhell/


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## Harbinger (May 24, 2014)

One of my wandering spider slings feeding :3


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## Zagzagel (May 27, 2014)

I remember I was riding my motorcycle along the south-eastern US coast  when I was hit in the chest by a stag beetle. I was doing about 75mph,  and I thought I'd been shot, and I nearly crashed my bike. (I've been  shot before, and I can tell you it's not pleasant.) I had no idea how  big those things got. I was wearing a heavy leather jacket over a  flannel shirt and undershirt, and I still wound up with a bone bruise.

When  I lived in San Francisco, I had a friend who owned a South-American  Brown Tarantula. This was a BIG spider with a leg-span of almost a foot.  One day he noticed she wasn't eating, and had a large bulge between two  of her legs. He was very worried about her, but didn't know where to  take her. I mean, what vet treats spiders? Most of them just laughed at  us. Finally, one suggested we take her to the Entomology department at  Berkeley. So we called them and the fellow there said to bring her on  down. So he looked at her and said she had a cyst, common to tarantulas.  He drained it with a needle (that's when I discovered that tarantulas'  have blue copper-based blood) and she seemed to perk up. Later that  night when I called him he said that she ate all of her pinkies as was  doing well. He still had her two years later when I moved from the Bay  Area. (I have no idea how long tarantulas live.)


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## Tailmon1 (May 27, 2014)

You need a good old Texas Tree Roach! They are the Biggest Roaches around here 
some are as big or bigger than your thumb!


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## Hooky (May 29, 2014)

Freaky yet still awesome.


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## Harbinger (Jun 2, 2014)

I saw some Goliath birdeaters at a recent exhibition, they are ridiculously huge.
Anyway, some more recent pics.

Have a Spiny flower mantis riding a new species of rare spiny stick insect whilst eating a fly.






Spot the Australian cigar stick insect.






Same mantis wrestling a bigger fly.






Rare and very fancy stick insect.


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## Harbinger (Jun 7, 2014)

The Cigar stick insects matured.






And no photo's yet but i've just the a jungle nymph turn adult, now these are fucking monsters, one of the biggiest and chunkiest arthropods out there, they arent nearly as long as the foot long species but they are so much more fatter, like a massive ass hamster.


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## Harbinger (Jun 11, 2014)

Here she is :3






And today my largest ever one turned adult, she's as big as my forearm its ridiculous...


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## DMAN14 (Jun 15, 2014)

Well I'm not a bug person but I appreciate the photography. If you wanna talk photography stuff hit me up


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