Phasmid Ova/Egg Incubation

Okay, today's snippet is about the method (or one of the methods) of incubating phasmid ova.

Phasmid ova require a very specific set of conditions to hatch and these conditions are a bit tricky to achieve in captivity; they need high humidity and good ventilation. If you have good ventilation but low humidity, your eggs will dry out and if you have low ventilation with high humidity, your eggs will start going mouldy/funky.

I have managed to achieve these conditions by using a home made incubator aka plastic tub with a few holes.

I places my ova within small plastic containers which has a bit of mesh on the lid. These small containers serve to keep the ova/nymphs separate as well as to offer the nymphs a secure spot to "inflate" after hatching. They often prefer hanging upside down while doing this, hence the mesh lid.

But these small containers on their own have excellent ventilation, but dont hold humidity. To solve this, I place all the smaller containers into a larger plastic tub, which has a few holes drilled in the lid and sides. I add about 20mm of water at the bottom of the larger tub. As the water evaporates, it keeps the humidity high in the large tub.

I have tried a few substrates before finding one which I find suitable which included toilet paper, kitchen toweling, vermiculite etc, but I find that none work better than good old sand. The sand I use is sand sold for swimming pool filters. For ova that require particularly high humidity, I place a layer of wet vermiculite under the sand.

Here is one of the smaller tubs, filled with the sandy substrate. Note the label on the front on the tub.

And here is the larger tub containing all the small tubs. Note the mesh top to the smaller tubs.

For me this method works like a charm! 

Depending on how many species you are incubating and how much space you have available, it is possible to place ova from two different species together into a smaller tub, but make sure the nymphs and ova of the two species are distinct. I have seen too many people mix up ova and nymphs and after a while have no idea what species they are working with. 

Here is a tub with Haaniella dehaani (right) and Adropromachus scutatus "Tam Dao" (left) ova together. Note the MASSIVE difference in the appearance of the ova and nymphs are also very distinct. 

Thanx for reading!