Porcellio hoffmannseggi “brown”

Maybe it has already happened to one or the other of you. You buy an isopod breeding batch and color abnormalities keep appearing in the offspring. It can even go so far that the color mutation becomes established in this batch all by itself. Jackpot!

If you buy a breeding batch of Isopods from a hobby breeder, there is a good chance that some of the animals in the batch are siblings. If the parent animals have passed on color abnormalities in their genes, you have effectively already bought the first generation of color morphs. As these offspring are heterozygous for this abnormality, they look like normal P. hoffmannseggi and nobody would suspect a mutation in these Isopods.

We had a similar experience with a Porcellio hoffmannseggi breeding batch. More and more brown P. hoffmannseggi emerged, which in the end made up a quarter of the total breeding stock. For this reason, I advise anyone who buys an additional breeding stock to their existing animals to separate them for the time being. This gives you better control over the offspring and any mutations that may occur.

We separated a total of 15 P. hoffmannseggi “brown”. In this case, it is of course a perfect prerequisite for achieving rapid color stability in this strain.

I assume that I may have to sort out some of the first offspring and that the 2nd generation will be color stable. Of course I will keep you informed about this beautiful color mutation.