Urucumania sp. "Concepción"

(by Bruno Kneubuehler)

General Notes

• for further taxonomical information → Phasmida Species Files
• Sven Bradler works on molecular gentic aspects of this species
• Oskar Conle, Pablo Valero and Frank Hennemann are going to describe this species as Urucumania weintraubi (in honor of Jason Weintraub, ASNP, Philadelphia)

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Culture History

• 2011 - first successful culture by Sven Bradler (Germany)
• 2013 – distributed to other breeders as Pseudophasma sp. „Bolivia“

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Origin

• Concepción (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) 

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Females

• ornamental phasmids, with a body shape typical for this tribe
• body length about 5.5 – 6 cm
• different brown shades
• many, whitish, small dots (dorsally) all over the body
• dorsally a blackish centered strip along the whole body
• antennae longer than forelegs and black-white annulated
• thighs (femur) dark brown
• lower legs (tibia) and tarsus reddish-brown
• small, whitish wingbuds
• subgenital plate not longer than the abdominal ending

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Males

• thin, nicely colored phasmids
• body length about 4 – 4.5 cm
• coloration as in females
• abdominal ending dark colored

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Nymphs

• small nymphs
• body length about 10 mm (L1)
• dark antennae with a white area near the tip
• brown with some small white dots
• by L2 it is quite easy to draw a distinction between ♀♂ (by the naked eye)

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Eggs

• about 3 x 1.5 mm
• grey-brown to dark-grey with blackish dots
• surface net-like structured
• matt
• a small, very short capitulum present on the operculum (lid)
• micropylar plate shovel-like shaped

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Food Plants

• it is very much recommendede to cut away the edges of the leaves for nymphs in L1
• regularly change the plants and the water in which they stand
• Lonicera nitida (common ground-covering plant in gardens, wintergreen)
  is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• Privet (Ligustrum spp.) 
  is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica) 
  wintergreen, common garden plant, is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• forsythia (Forsythie x intermedia) 
  is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• plantain (Plantago spp.) 
  is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• ash (Fraxinus spp.) 
  is very well accepted by nymphs and adults
• bramble (Rubus spp.) 
  is moderatly well accepted by nymphs and adults

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Behaviour

• nymphs as well as adult are passive during the day and out and about feeding at night
• usually they are passive even when being touched, at the most they try to escape for just a few steps from the harasser
• males tend to stay with the same female for some time
• females just let the eggs drop to the ground

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Developement

• incubation time (HH-incubation on slightly damp sand at 20 - 23 °C) should be about 3 - 6 months. As I did not know the date when the eggs were laid, therefore I can only give this rough period ...
• spread some dried  (!) moss over the eggs - this will make it much easier for the nymphs to hatch unscathed and it also reduces mould growth to some extend
• hatching ratio in F1 was very high (> 50%)
• males will be adult after about 5 months (at 20 – 23°C), females after about 5 – 6 months
• females start laying eggs after about 3 – 4 weeks
• about 15 eggs per female and week
• adults can live for several months

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Breeding Notes

• my general notes on how to breed phasmids are an integral part of this care sheet
• it is  easy to breed this species
• for a succesful culture it is highly recommend to keep nymphs seperate from the adults. This makes it much easier to monitor their developement and they are protected from being disturbed or even harmed by the much bigger adults (like during their moults)
• keep the nymphs in a cage with good ventilation
• humidity should not be too high
• a humidity level of about 60+ % rH (for adults) and 75+ %  rH (for nymphs) seems to be fine
• nymphs and adults can be kept in a Faunabox (or similar cages like Faunarium)
• move nymphs to a bigger cage as they grow bigger
• a cage of at least 30 x 30 x 30 cm should be provided for 4 – 5 adult couples
• generally I recommend to keep only one species per cage – the culture is much more likely to be successful than in an overcrowed, multi-species cage
• I have never sprayed nymphs, adults or their cage with water
• make sure that nymphs, which are about to undergo their adult moult, do not find places in the cage which would not offer them enough space beneath to moult successfully