# New cricket species to culture?



## JUNGLEJAMIE (Dec 16, 2014)

I wild collected sphagnum in the north east U.S. about a month ago and was using some for my isopods and noticed an extremely small reddish/tan looking cricket. I decided to look through the rest of it and found 10 more. I was thinking, with the extremely small size of this cricket, and the ease of gutloading crickets, this would be a perfect food to culture for darts. I searched google and identified them as Neonemobius palustris. I set up a deli cup intended for fruit flies with a patch of moist sphagnum, a small bottle cap full of fish food, and a larger bottle cap with moist peat moss for egg laying. Has anyone ever tried this before? If so what was the outcome? Im very hopeful, i cant think of a better feeder if these are able to be cultured


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Neat find. Hope you have fun breeding them.

I tried breeding crickets once. I've had less fun than that, but not too often.


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## JUNGLEJAMIE (Dec 16, 2014)

Well if you do it right, its very easy to have tons of pins, but they grow too fast. Fruit flies are easy but i think the nutritional profile and ability to gutload crickets is very beneficial to the darts. Im willing to do something a tiny bit more difficult for the frogs benefit, and these crickets are small enought for thumbnails to eat even the adults.


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## JUNGLEJAMIE (Dec 16, 2014)

I also like a variety of foods, i have enough sringtails to use them exclusively, also dwarf isos, several ant colonies and campsodes shwarzi in the mail


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## JUNGLEJAMIE (Dec 16, 2014)

I guess you have to enjoy culturing inverts a bit as well...


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Well, I'm one of "those people" and enjoy when I am at home tending my colonies.

They are of humble scale, but I have much gratitude toward them and I am always thinking of manage developments and feed out strategies.

Im very interested in your crickets and would love to continue hearing about them. 

I have a group of Bumblebee Toads with huge appetites that cleanly raised sub adults of this species seem like they would be a filling and stimulating treat.

I could also see the adults being well received by Phelsuma Klemmeri as well as L. williamsi. 

My mind is open and enthusiastic about your project 100%.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Really cool. Any chance of some pictures/video of the crickets? good luck and keep us posted. I also experiment with a lot of different feeders and am really keen for you to succeed with these.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I wonder about how damaging to plants they might be in a vivarium? I can't find much info about this species online.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

If they are omnivore/scavenger like other members of their tribe, they will ignore plant material if a protein + fats alternative is present ie feeding station. 

It also greatly inhibits being drawn to sebaceous material and tender parts. Crickets like many insects are attuned to bio electric current emitted by living animals and prefer scavenging over predation risks.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Kmc said:


> If they are omnivore/scavenger like other members of their tribe, they will ignore plant material if a protein + fats alternative is present ie feeding station.
> 
> 
> 
> It also greatly inhibits being drawn to sebaceous material and tender parts. Crickets like many insects are attuned to bio electric current emitted by living animals and prefer scavenging over predation risks.




Hey Kmc...what protein do you use for cricket feeding stations in the viv? Can’t remember.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I like to use dog, cat, or wet to dough/smudgeable fish food, turtle pellets etc. 

They cant resist it. I avoid food they can carry around in the environment.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

In one piece info I was able to find so far, it was stated that this species feeds on sphagnum, which i am assuming is foraged live, which may or may not present a quandary. 

it would not if say, spring mix greens could be substituted, or if their impact is so fey being small it would not present a problem in a Viv with living moss.

Sure would like to find out


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

If they are targeting decomposing sphagnum perhaps an attractive composite substitute could be devised..


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

The drive to consume proteins and fats when available, is a useful manipulation in Viv feeding, so it would be cool to find out. Because feeding station provision is transitory, it works well for that purpose, however for rearing/culturing a hi protein diet might yield unhealthy urate constitution of the feeders. 

Do they actually live on sphagnum? For culturing these it needs to be determined.


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## Ravage (Feb 5, 2016)

Very interesting indeed. If they are sphagnum moss eaters, perhaps they could be introduced to Soylent Green as an alternative food for culturing. Best of luck with them, and if you get them going, I'm sure many of us would be interested in buying a "starter set" down the road.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

The adult size of these is the same size as 1-2 wkrs of other available forms, yet not temporal, which is a very useful quality.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

JungleJamie, its been a few days, what have you seen them feeding on so far?

Any other observations about the crickets?


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

We have native Nemobius crickets that are all over the place here in the midwest during the late summer / autumn. What you have to keep in mind is that these crickets experience a cold phase / dormancy for the eggs which may make them impractical. Try the new Gryllodes sigillatus. I posted something back a while in the Food section. I get a batch of pinheads once a week from my crickets. They live a very long time and have low mortality as long as you keep them clean and have a moisture source at all times, particularly as pinheads. I only feed out adult male crickets and let the females live out their lives to lay eggs. The longest I've had G. sigillatus live was four months or so. They often consume their dead colony members, so there isn't a lot of smell to the enclosure.

I feed my mantellas pinheads 2-3 times a week and I can often feed my tincs pinheads once a week. My mantellas are over ten years old, and I have never found a cricket survive until adulthood. I've been feeding pinheads to my tincs the past couple months and have yet to find an adult cricket either running loose in the vivarium.


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## JUNGLEJAMIE (Dec 16, 2014)

Sorry i haven chimed in recently. Been very busy with life. I placed them in a container with a patch of moist sphagnum, a short and wide container of moist peat moss and fed them fish food. They probably do eat the sphagnum but are definately eating the fish food. I discovered these in my turkistan roach colony because i put a patch of wild foraged sphanum in a corner of their enclosure to help sustain humidity and while poking around in there one day, saw a cricket, then another... etc. Im pretty sure they have been eating the foods i feed to my roaches. There were no visible crickets in the sphagnum when i collected it do there must have been eggs. None of these crickets are mature yet but some are of msture size so they should be soon. Im guessing since they eat other foods they dont need the sphagnum but im keeping it with them so far. If they do eat it, its only in very small, unnoticable amounts. When i get a chance i will upload a video. Ill be waiting for adults to see how the egg laying goes. In the mean time i plan on filling a large sterilite bin with more sphagnum ill collect, wait about a month for them to hatch out of it and remove the sphagnum to aquire a greater number of them to experiment with. Ill keep you guys updated


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Rain_Frog said:


> We have native Nemobius crickets that are all over the place here in the midwest during the late summer / autumn. What you have to keep in mind is that these crickets experience a cold phase / dormancy for the eggs which may make them impractical.


This is an interesting point however some of the larger temperate springtails I have can also produce resting eggs for the winter but they tend not to in culture as this is something that's triggered by a reduction in temperatures and hours of daylight that they don't experience in captivity. 
I believe the same is also true for the_ acheta domestica_, the most commonly available feeder cricket.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

According to what Ive ben able to dig up crickets do not store uric acid, also mentioned in a feeding article by Allen Rapashy I remember which perhaps rings a bell with someone here. 

The more I think about it the more I'm interested in these crickets.

JungleJamie if some men in black with orange compound sunglasses come to your door - don't answer - and by all means keep in touch with us, lol!

Nothing will take the place of fruit flies, the surficant, out-in-the-open perching behavior, the tiny yet meaty size, and boom numbers in record time frames assure it.

But these little crickets are compelling. I wonder about their kinetics also and if they can be roughly coralled in a smooth sided feeding container of accessable eyeline hieght 

I hope the investigation continues.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Yeah, I don't understand why some insist on roaches because of the uric acid, but also because the tendency for them to survive and grow in a vivarium. 

However, it's worth playing around with new feeder items, and would be interesting if you get those native crickets to produce pinheads in a reasonable timeframe  . 

The crickets need more attention than my frogs. The thing you have to watch is that they always have access to fresh water / potato wedge, particularly when pinheads. I've lost quite a few batches of pinheads just by forgetting to add a new piece of potato for moisture. I've learned that Gryllodes prefers damper conditions, and will be perfectly fine with some condensation as long as the food doesn't mold. I've left the egg laying container in with the pinheads for longer and have better survival rates which I think is tied to moisture during the winter when air is very dry.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I want to bump this incase OP is still around and might be willing to provide an update. They joined all the way back in 2014 so I assume they check in once in a while. I was very interested in this.


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## radiata (Jul 24, 2010)

Looks like they were "Last seen 4 mo ago".


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