A. opacum eggs

[Bellabelloo]

Well today I had a bit of a surprise from these animals. It seems they had laid some eggs

These animals came originally from Mark Pickstock as juveniles and have been in this tub now for maybe two or three autumns . It has a layer of garden soil, mixed with leaf litter, a water dish and layers of moss, wood bark, coconut shell and broken terracotta pot for variety. There is a lot of free range woodlice and are topped up with any small worms that I find in the garden. The tub is black plastic, around 1 metre by 50cm. and sits under a conifer tree at the bottom end of my garden. This is where I keep most of my animals now. During the summer I occasionally watered it, really just to keep the worms happy.
The last week or so has become cooler and we've had a lot of rain, enough to make the whole tub unusually damp.
When I went to look for them, I found a female curled around the eggs beside a male. This was in the top left corner under some tree bark, covered by moss and more bark.
I have removed some eggs to monitor and left the others in situ. When I have placed the eggs over light I can see a darker, slightly oval shape inside. Hopefully this will change.

 

[Otterwoman]

What a great accomplishment!

 

[pierson_hill]

Well done!

 

[Bellabelloo]

I was being nosy and had another look yesterday and found she had laid more eggs. The male has now moved to the furthest corner away from her. I'm going to leave these eggs in situ for a few weeks now and resist looking again

 

[Bellabelloo]

I took a small batch indoors on Monday as I was not seeing any sign of development.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I took a small batch indoors on Monday as I was not seeing any sign of development.

I was hoping to be able to add some pics, but having no joy. Laptop has died so having to rely on phone. I'll try another time. The eggs look like they are starting to develop.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I had been keeping these in a sloped container, with about a teaspoon of water at the bottom. Lunchtime I moved it onto the kitchen worktop so I'd remember to have a good look at later. About 45 minutes later I returned to find it had slipped and I had escaped larvae. They had been quite lively inside their eggs, so I've now added more water.

 

[Bellabelloo]

Yesterday I removed the unhatched and manky eggs. These are from the first batch and are eating small daphnia, micro worm and small bloodworm. The second females eggs got a fluffy mould and hatched much earlier. These are still on the smallest of food. They are in the shed.

 

[Kansamander]

Keep your eye on that light larvae - I caught a smallmouth larvae closely resembling it this spring, and it was unable to morph. So now I essentially have a miniature axolotl. Very sociable, great pet.