my pics – BettSplendens Tumblr Evac

I found a friend in the university turtle pond! Common snapping turtle, I think. Put him back after taking the photo.

This is the Money Roach. He brings a blessing of cash gifts from folks this holiday season, but you have to RB fast before he scuttles away or you only get half the blessing.

Bad photo because it’s cloudy outside and therefore I can’t get any natural light, but I made a tiny paludarium- basically a hybrid of an aquarium and a terrarium. This one’s in a 6" wide bowl meant to hold candles. Pretty sure water and plants are, like, the opposite of candles.
The water portion is mostly full of Java moss and a single Java fern. The land portion, which is contained in a bag made of Hygrolon (a plastic mesh designed to wick water), is made of peat moss and full of bladderwort. The bladderwort hasn’t sent up any new leaves yet, but it should soon.

Pause just had to sit on the washing machine and loom over me while I was trying to pee.
Pretty sure there’s a reason why bathrooms don’t usually have FLUFFY GARGOYLES.

Last pic of this guy, I promise, but here’s side-by-side pics of large nymph, newly molted roach, and hardened roach. Same guy, pics scaled to about accurate comparison sizes.

Final result of the peppered roach who had his final molt yesterday. Hardened up his exoskeleton overnight, and here he is!
He had his antennae tucked up for this pic because I’d just picked him up, but about 30 seconds after, he started crawling around on my hands. Still nice and calm, just exploring a bit. Bigger bugs always seem to be much calmer than small ones.

I met a tegu! I was at a ComicCon, and there were some people there who had a trailer/minizoo with a bunch of reptiles. This guy was big and chill, so I got pics with him.

Arizonafairyshrimp.com sells a batch of retail fairy shrimp eggs containing a variant that has an orange/red exoskeleton and legs instead of the usual white/clear. These are the same species, but one is the red variant and one is normal. They’re also, respectively, female and male, but I also have red males and normal females. Next batch, I’m gonna sort them by color before they mature and see if that red breeds true. Maybe even try to selectively breed for a bright red?

Out of order somehow.

The weird shaped one with the trumpety white flower is an Angraecum distichum, about half an inch across.

The dark purple orchid with the dangling leaves and babboon-face-shaped flowers is a Lepanthes Gargoyla, leaves one inch across at the widest point.

The two orchids stuck together with the yellow flower are Haraella odonata, the flower is half an inch tall.

The plant in the first pic with the striped flower is a Dendrobium lichenastrum, and its leaves are about an inch long, at most.

And last but not least, the cluster with the greenish pronged blooms that you have to look closely for is Bulbophyllum alagense large form, and its leaves are about three fourths of an inch tall, not counting the bulbs.

This is a Ceratostylis pleurothallis, the smallest orchid I own, in bloom. That flower is about a quarter of an inch wide, and the plant is full-sized.