Unboxing a Titan! And Why I Haven't Been Uploading as Much

[00:00:00]Trust me, this unboxing is going to be massive.

[00:00:07][music] There's so much [music] trouble in the world today.

[00:00:16]It's so hard to get ahead. Yeah. Wishing my [music] worries would just go away.

[00:00:22]Nothing seems to clear my weary head. I take [music] a drink after work, maybe a smoker, too. only leaves [singing] me wanting more.

[00:00:32]Need something [music] real that can satisfy [singing] me. Look who just walked through the door. When I'm alone [music] with you, everything is all right.

[00:00:44]When [music] I can hold you close, nothing better than to have you by my side.

[00:00:55]Well, it feels like it's been a while since we have opened a package together.

[00:00:59]So, let's get into this one and see what I have been ordering from the spider shop.

[00:01:05]And the reason I'm saying it's massive is not because the amount I've ordered, even though there is a few in here, but because of the size of the things I've ordered.

[00:01:19]Now, give me a minute to get ready all these packing [music] peanuts and then we will see what is in this box.

[00:01:24][snorts] [music] Oh no.

[00:01:46]So, as you can see, we have got quite a haul here that we're going to go through. I'm going to start with these things that I forgot add. And these are five little bad life decisions. So, quite often on the spider shop when you're buying stuff, when you get to the end when it's got the check out, it has like a we tab at the bottom and it says something else for you. It's like new deals and stuff like that. And on that tab, they had killer brackets things for a quid each. So, I picked up five and I don't know why I done it because I hate killer brackets. They're absolute psychos. I don't like keeping them as much as they're pretty spiders. But now I've got four out five off the craziest of the lot, the little Asian fawn. So, yeah, that is definitely a problem I am going to have to deal with now. So, we'll pop them to the side. I got them for a quid each though, which is pretty good. So, that's probably what swayed me, the fact it was just a quid per sling. You never know, we can maybe grow a couple on and see about doing giveaways in the future with them. But, yeah. Yeah, definitely kind of regret that now. But that isn't what this order was for. I was looking specifically for giants in the invert world. So, I've got some really cool species here that we are going to start looking at. So, I think we'll come on to the bigger stuff later and we'll start at the smaller end of that spectrum. Now, I have been really enjoying keeping my beetles recently, and I really want to get further into the world of beetles. Now, beetles are incredibly cool animals, and I've worked with some really, really impressive beetles when I was over in South America, and they've just always had that special place in my heart, and they are incredibly diverse. There are more species of beetles on this earth than anything else. Most likely, there's a good chance wasps might be up there as well, but we'll maybe look at that in a different video. But I have got some beetles here that I am going to be planning to do some breeding setups for to start breeding my own grubs. So, in this pot, I have picked up some amazing little flower beetles. So these are some little chloricanana Africana which are some metallic African flower beetles and they are absolutely amazing the coloring on these guys. So I picked up four of these guys. So they're going to be going in a nice setup where we are hoping to get some breeding on the go. Now you can sex them from their antenna. So maybe look at how to do that in a future video. So it looks like there is two females in there.

[00:04:01]Oh, that's that one taken off. When you're working with beles, always have a good net to hand. So, I managed to get this one in here. So, you can normally tell when they're about to fly because you'll see them start to open the colloptra and they've got to kind of pump their wings out. So, you'll see them opening out of those wing cases.

[00:04:20]But I wasn't paying enough attention there to notice those signs. So, not a lot of people know that many beetles have usable wings. Some of them have these fused anterior segments. If there are wing structures there, they won't be able to use them. Unlike our blue defan and beetles, they kind of got that fused back end cuz they don't they don't want anything for water to escape. So they've sealed everything in. Some beetles though still use flight as a way to get around. So these guys are actually very good flyers as you might have seen there. And when you see the way that they open out their wings, start to extend them to fly, it is incredible. So that is one species of beetle down. So we'll pop that to the side. The next two are really cool beetles. They're part of the same genus, but they're different species within that genus. So to move away from the fuller beetles for a second, we've got a different type and this is proipcoilus senagalencis which is the senagal stag beetle or the desert stag beetle it sometimes gets called or the west African stag beetle. Let me see if I can get it out. So this is a male.

[00:05:14]It's got slightly enlarged mandibles compared to the females although it's not hugely different in this species actually. And it is one of the midsized stags.

[00:05:24]So again these can fly as well. So we'll keep a little eye on it. It looks like it may have a damaged leg. That shouldn't affect it breeding hopefully.

[00:05:31]So, we have got a breeding pair of these as well. We've got the male and we have got the female in here. It is actually really simple to breed stag beetles. And if that's something you want to do and you've got a pair of them, look back at my earlier video where I go over a really easy method beetle breeding. And everything you actually need to breed these guys, you can find outside in the forest and it's pretty safe to do so.

[00:05:50]Now, he looks like he's been through the wars. He's got a slight mark on his abdomen. It looks like there was a puncture wound there. And he does have a broken leg. So I think this is very likely coming wild caught. But what we're going to do is pop these bitsy wood shavings back and see about getting them back into this file for now before he decides to a run or two. So another little breeding pair of beetles. You might notice there's a lot of breeding pairs in this video. And then the other pair is one that you've already actually seen on the channel perhaps and that's because it is the same species that are from that beetle breeding video I done earlier. So these are proipilus savagi which is also known as the Ugandan stag beetle. And the reason I got these is because my breeding last time it was fairly successful. I only only ended up with the one grub because I didn't pull them in time. But I do have a female. So I went and bought a breeding pair on the spider shop. So I got a male and a female. So now I have a male and two females. And I'm going to be able to pair them up and hopefully get two broods from them at least. But here is the little female. These are a bit smaller than the senagalencus. Now, I think there's actually been a little bit of a mixup here cuz this looks like another senencis, not a savage eye. Oh, she's quite active running about. So, I think what I'm going to do is pop her back into her vial as well and get a look at some of the next ones. Now, before we get on to the giants that I ordered, we're going to get a little look at this package. So, this is actually a substitution. I had ordered another two giant African millipedes because I was hoping to get a female to pair up with bagel and get some offspring from that.

[00:07:13]But when they got around to doing my order and they never had any giant Africans left, so they offered to put these in instead. So I have got some I believe these are a kerosporptus olives. So still a big millipede. In fact, a beautiful millipede. So it gets called the giant green or the giant olive millipede. And as you can see, they are actually well suited to that name. They have got incredible colors and they are still very big, robust animals. So I have got three in here. I will sex them. It isn't too hard to do.

[00:07:41]All you have to do is look at a certain segment of legs not far from the head on these guys. The males have special little gonopodial arms essentially which are like little sperm arms and they're not too hard to spot especially if you've got you know a dissection microscope or that which I have but quite often you'll just be able to see them by magnifying glass as well. So yeah we have got a group of three. So here's hoping that ideally we got a male and two females that even if we've just got one female and a couple of males that would be awesome. You know I thought we're not in a rush. I might as well try and sex some of them. So, this one is definitely a female. I can see that they don't have those specialized arms. And one of the ways you can tell is because it almost looks like they've got two legs missing from in between. I think it's that seven for six segment.

[00:08:23]I'm going to pop her back in here and see if I can get a look at these guys.

[00:08:27]Now, the other two are really playing ball and I don't want to stress them out. So, I'm just going to pop them back in. Hopefully get a chance to look at them later. No one's done a big jobby.

[00:08:35]So, in here I have got three banded titan millipeds. So these are phyro pigis. I don't believe a species has been described for these yet just the genus so far but they are massive millipeds and they're very active millipeds as well. If you have them in a nice big aroreal setup you will you'll get plenty activity out of these guys even during the day. There we go. I didn't want to force it over the branch cuz I didn't want to hurt any of the legs. But look at this guy. So these get about as big maybe even bigger than your giant Africans which are said to be the biggest millipede in the world. But these guys can absolutely rival that and they actually need very similar conditions in captivity which is a it's a real bonus. So if you are thinking about a giant African but you maybe can't find any, have a look and see if you can find any Titan millipedes. The cherry leg titan is a we bit harder to get but it's an absolutely beautiful millipede. Oh, this one is eating some of the skin off my hand. Ow. So I normally tell people millipedes are harmless, but this one definitely isn't.

[00:09:32]Let's see. I need some better light for this. I believe this is a this looks like a female. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is a female millipede. That one down there is a male. So, we've definitely got a female and a male. So, what I'll do is I'll keep the female in an enclosure and I'll keep the two males together and I will just periodically introduce some of those males into her enclosure so that she doesn't get hassled by them all the time. Cuz although you can quite happily keep these millipedes together with the right groups, if you've got two males to one female, they will probably just hassle her until she dies. Even just one male and one female kept together all the time, the male can just keep bothering that female and it will stress her out to the point where she just crawls up underground and doesn't ever resurface.

[00:10:14]I try to eat my finger again. Yeah, definitely a female. So, we're going to pop her back into this little tub now until I get that enclosure sorted for her. Now, let's look at a couple of beetles again. So, here I have got some giant flower beetles. So, this is a pair of immaculus which are really, really cool flower beetles. And actually, you'll notice that the male is fairly similar in appearance to some of the stag beetles. So quite often people actually mistake these for stag beetles, but the male has some amazing amazing adaptive traits. So if we look at him, he has these big specialized forearms.

[00:10:46]They're almost like jagged saw blades and a big horn on the front almost like a rhino beetle. And he does use them in a similar fashion for competing against other males for females. You know, structures like this when they develop in these animals, it is very rarely ever for self-defense. It's more for sexual selection. It's for them using them to show off, to attract other partners or to compete against other males of the same species for a partner. And you can see the size of this beetle. It is truly massive. We've only got one or two beetles in the UK that can kind of get to the size of these guys, and they're quite hard to find at times, but none this color. So, it's really awesome to have one of these in the collection. And I am really looking forward to breeding these. They've got a fairly short generational time. So, you're only really looking at maybe like eight months around that region for your grubs to develop into adults. And then you've maybe got a month in breeding. So, you're talking about in under a year you can breed these guys and have some more adults in your collection, which is really, really cool.

[00:11:46]Get the net again. So, if you're getting into insects and beetles, these nets are worth their weight in gold. And I will maybe put a link down to where you can get them later on. But let's pop him back for now. They're [snorts] very strong as well. Yeah. So, for housing these, you need a really, really secure enclosure because if you're just using one of those magnetic lids, they will just push it open and get out. So, it needs to be something that locks shut basically. So, I've got one other beetle to show you. But before that, we have got a first for the clan critter's room.

[00:12:10]In here, I have got some two spot assassin bugs, which are really, really big bugs. And they are actually the first bugs that we have got in here. So these belong to the order hemipta which are the true bugs and they're separated from some of the other insects by having these piercing mouth parts and the first portion their wings being hard with the second kind of section being membranous.

[00:12:30]Now in this hobby we've got a habit of calling everything bugs but not everything are bugs. Bugs are quite a big quite a big group quite a big order.

[00:12:38]They're within the top 10 specios at least. They might even be in the top three. So there is a lot of them but they by no mean make up all of the insects or the invertebrates. Now, these are insecttovorous bugs, so we will need to feed them live food as well. And we're going to get these guys a nice little cool setup. They're so easy to look after. You keep them pretty much arid, and if you just give them plenty of climbing spaces, these guys will absolutely thrive. So, I'm very excited to have some bugs in the animal room, and I'm really looking forward to setting these up. And then that sadly brings us on to our last animal. So, this is another beetle, but it doesn't maybe look quite like these other guys yet. So, this is a really big beetle and one I have wanted in the collection for a long time and it is one I have never kept. A lot of these other beetles I've worked with at least very similar species in some way or another, but I have never worked with one of these.

[00:13:23]Now, this is a very young one, but this is the Hercules beetle. So, this is Dynasty's Hercules Hercules, and it is a very, very young version of that animal.

[00:13:33]So, I am looking at about 3 years before I see this thing turn into the beetle that we all know and love. And if you haven't seen it, I'll put up a picture of these guys because they are absolutely incredible. And it is one of the biggest or let's just say the most massive beetles in the world. There's a difference between big and massive.

[00:13:51]Massive is to do with how much mass there is to a thing, which is what we generally describe as weight, although weight is actually slightly different in a scientific sense. So if we go on a we bit a tangent for a second, what we usually call weight is actually just mass. It's just a measurement of how much of a finger is essentially. And we can measure that in things like kilog.

[00:14:11]Whereas weight is actually a measure of both mass and gravity. And we tend to measure that in units called newtons. So there might be so much newtons acting on that thing. But yeah, all that just to say that these are big animals. And I am really looking forward to having them. I have got a group of three here. I am going to see if I can sex them already because there is a way to do it by mandibles, I believe, with this beetle species, which is the case for most beetles anyway, but I'll have to double check cuz I've never tried it with these. Again, ideally, I'm really hoping for a male and two females, but I would also be just as happy with even three males because of how cool the males are, or two males and a female, cuz I would love to have the opportunity to breed these as well. You're talking about a pair of adult Hercules beetles will go for at least 160 quid a pair. They're not cheap animals to pick up, which is why you kind of need to get in early when you see them as grubs. Now, these guys appear to already be in quite a good quality flake soil, so I am very happy to just leave them in there. And I am going to monitor this over a little while. I will check the weight of them every now and then to make sure they are actually gaining weight. And these are just going to be sitting on my shelf for probably another three years. With any luck, maybe about a year and a half. You know, I always get kind of disappointed at this point in a video when I've opened everything and looked at and realized I've got anything else to open up. Almost like I'm regretting no getting more, even though there is there's a huge amount of animals here that I now need to sort out. And that feeling is exactly why I've ended up with a room like this full of animals.

[00:15:31]But saying that, I don't think it'd be right if we didn't do at least one rehhouseing while we're here. And I think we are going to go with the assassin bugs. And that's purely because of how simple they are to set up. I've already got everything I need in here to make a a pretty good enclosure for these guys. So, they do like a very arid substrate. They like it to be dry. So, this tortoise terrain here is already perfect for this.

[00:15:58]They also don't need a lot of substrate.

[00:16:00]So, I'm essentially just putting enough for me to be able to anchor any other bits that I want in this enclosure.

[00:16:07][snorts] Now, one thing they definitely need is they need things to hang from. So, when they mold, it's almost like our true spiders. They need to be able to hang to pull themselves out that exoskeleton.

[00:16:19]It's not quite as important for the adults once they get to this size cuz they do have an ultimate moago. But, it's really important for the nymphs.

[00:16:26]And we are hoping to get a colony of these guys on the go. So, we definitely want to make sure we've got everything that those nymphs need to succeed.

[00:16:35]Got a nice piece of cork bark in there.

[00:16:36]And I'm going to take a couple of funky sticks that I cut out the garden.

[00:16:43]There we go. Looking fairly natural so far. I'm going to put in a couple of bits of just dried spagnum that I'm not going to add any moisture to at all, just to break up some of the textures in there. And down the back of the height here. Now, you know, I love my leaflet.

[00:16:55]If there's one thing I could get sponsorship on this channel for, it would be leaf litter. So, we are going to put in some of our habistat leaf litter mulch into here. I don't like this quite as good as our compressed bricks for detavors, but when it comes to using it as malt or just for aesthetics off a tank, I really love this leaf litter mulch. It's a much harder, more robust leaf. And I think it just gives a slightly nicer look in there. But saying that, I am going to add in just a handful of their softer leaf litter as well.

[00:17:21]And I think a few whole leaves will look quite good, too. And I wasn't going to add any plants, but I've got this spare little seer vivium here. So, I think we will just pop that in as well, cuz these don't really take much moisture. And if you do have a species that like on the drier side, what you can do is just take a syringe and you can essentially deliver water right into the roots of that plant. And I think after we give the glass a little clean, we will be ready. Now, I don't believe these guys can climb glass, but I definitely don't want to escape cuz they've got a nasty bite on them. You know, they use those piercing mouth parts and they like essentially spear them into the the skin of the carropusy, whatever their victim is. And they're not unknown to bite the odd person. Yeah. I'm unsure if they can climb glass. So, we're just going to play it careful in case of the the lid ready here. Now, can we get you out?

[00:18:06]Okay. Fairly calm so far. Okay. So, apparently they can climb glass.

[00:18:13]That's pretty good to know. There we go.

[00:18:15]Nice little twospot assassin bug enclosure. Now, let's see if we can get some of these guys fed.

[00:18:26][music] Man, I always had [music] stories about the city line and the crazy nights and figure I should [singing] probably give it a try. Maybe [music] check it out.

[00:18:41]See what it's all about.

[00:18:44]But the traffic was fast and the money was slow. The people [music] I met you never get to know. I kind of miss this place I used to live back [music] home.

[00:18:56]Cuz up here it's pregnant [music] raises. What's next? I'm tired of feeling like a small fish in a big pond. [music] I think I'm going back where I came from. where everybody knows my name.

[00:19:15]My friends are still the same. I guess the slow line just [music] right.

[00:19:25]>> Chaza here has a fascination with all the animals in this room. [laughter] The cockroaches are by far her favorite.

[00:19:30]She even catches one or two escapees every now and then.

[00:19:34]It's actually been quite a challenging time in the hobby for me recently and I've had a lot going on at work. So for those of you that don't know, I also teach secondary education. So I was previously biology. I now work in outreach. So I teach like our hardest to reach young people in the community, people who come [music] from some really adverse circumstances. And it can be quite hard to switch off when those [music] are the kids that you're dealing with when you come back cuz you're always worrying about, you know, what's happening at home with them and how they're getting on. Especially in times like this when it's the holidays when people are out having fun and going on holiday and you know these kids are perhaps not going back to something that they're enjoying. And in fact, the time that they feel safest is when they're in school with you, which can be quite [music] hard to separate yourself from.

[00:20:11]And with all kind of the responsibility of that job, I've been struggling to get into [music] the animal room to make videos. So, you might notice for the past couple of weeks, I've not really uploaded anything. So, I've had like a month without anything uploaded, which is the first time that's really happened since [music] I started the channel over a year ago. And I was considering whether this is something I want to keep doing cuz as much as I love making the videos and I love, you know, showing off the animals and stuff, it's not always easy to find time. But then something happened quite recently that kind of put it all into perspective and that when I got the spare time to be doing these things, I should really be investing [music] all the time I can into doing this stuff that I love. So unfortunately recently I lost a really good friend.

[00:20:44]And for the [music] guys from the UK scene, you'll probably know who that is.

[00:20:47]And it's Mark the Spider guy. So Mark was somebody that really welcomed me into this community when I first started getting [music] involved in YouTube and when I first started getting involved with the hobbyside entomology as well.

[00:20:57]He has an amazing channel which I'll link below which I'd love you guys to go and check out if you can and show him some love. But yeah, we lost them just [music] the other day there just last it'll be last week when I put this video and it was something that was really quite quite a shock quite hard to deal with. And if I'm honest, I still don't think I've really dealt with it. But it's kind of both kicked me into gear with doing this stuff and also made it quite a challenge [music] coming back to this space and looking at these animals knowing that this was something we were all kind of involved with together. So yeah, it's became a bit of a somber space. But I am also excited about what could kind [music] of become all this.

[00:21:27]You know, Martha was an interesting guy, and one thing he definitely done was he always hassled us with making videos.

[00:21:33]And I think Lee and Dave got the brunt of that most of the time. So, it's definitely not something I'm giving up.

[00:21:37]Apart from that, I've also just spent 300 quid on this new fancy macro lens to show you the close-ups of these [music] animals. So, I'm getting my money's worth of that. Anyway, but yeah, I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all you guys who have subscribed to the channel and who regularly [music] turn up to watch the videos. Even if you're just popping in for your first time, um it means a lot to me that you've managed to make it through this point in the video. And hopefully you've seen a few things that you like and you might come back again. You never know.

[00:21:59]But that is it for me today. I've still got a few animals I need to get into some more suitable enclosures and a whole load of tidying up to do. So until next time, cheer [music] and zasta.

[00:22:21]I love these streets that I walk on.

[00:22:25][singing] >> [music] >> I know this is where I belong.

[00:22:31][music and singing] So rain falling as I'm [music and singing] walking home across the river. [music] The sound is changing across the river. [music] I can hear a different song. [singing] So rains falling [music] as I'm walking home. [music and singing]