Orange is not rare in Cubaris. Red eyes on an orange Cubaris are what mark this one out. Look at a Giant Mandarin side-on and the first thing you see is a clear red-brown eye set into a tangerine head shield, and once you have noticed it you will not mistake it for the murina Mandarin again. The second thing is the size: this is a full-bodied animal of around 17 mm, with the domed back, the white seams between the plates and the blunt, flared face that mark it as a Cubaris, in a package with real weight to it. Ours are captive-bred here in the UK.
Two Mandarins, and Why the Name Trips People Up
There are two orange isopods called Mandarin in the hobby and they are not the same animal. The Cubaris murina 'Mandarin' is a colour form of Cubaris murina, one of the very few hobby Cubaris with a formal scientific description, a small and forgiving species that our Cubaris murina care guide covers along with its Papaya, Glacier and Anemone forms. The Giant Mandarin is a different species altogether, a Cubaris sp. from Thailand with no published name, roughly three times the bulk of the murina form, and with the red eyes the murina Mandarin does not have. Put the two side by side and there is no confusing them; on a listing title, the names are made to be confused.
That "sp." matters, and it is worth being plain about. The genus Cubaris Brandt, 1833, in the family Armadillidae, holds more than a hundred described species, C. murina among them as the type. Many of the Cubaris sold in the hobby are animals science has not named, filed under a trade label, and the genus itself has become a catch-all that taxonomists themselves call a wastebasket. So the Giant Mandarin is a Thai Cubaris sp. because that is the most anyone can say; the name, the origin and the care are what we know, and one care sheet's suggestion that it was isolated from another Thai line is a guess I would not repeat as fact.
What They Look Like
The colour runs from a lighter apricot-orange to a deep tangerine, and it deepens as an animal moults through to adult size, so a young colony looks paler than the adults in the photographs and fills in over successive moults. The plates are smooth and glossy, each edged in a thin white line, and the body is the rounded, high-domed Cubaris shape that rolls into a tight ball when disturbed. The eyes are the tell: a red-brown that reads as red against the orange. The listing gives around 17 mm; one outside care sheet gives the same figure as a maximum, and I have found nothing published beyond that.
Temperature: This One Needs the Heat Cable
The panel gives 21 to 26°C, and that is the difference between this animal and the Mediterranean pill woodlice on the same shelf. An English home over the heating season averages around 19°C, which is below the floor of the band, so for most of the year a Giant Mandarin colony in this country needs help: a heat cable along the back of the racking on a thermostat, which is how I run the Cubaris shelf, or a mat mounted on the side of the tub, never underneath, where it dries the substrate the animals burrow into. The upper end matters too; a tub in an August heatwave can pass 26°C in a warm room, so keep them off the windowsill. One outside sheet gives 22 to 28°C; the panel is ours, and the top of it is where to stop. Our guide to heating isopods has the cable and the thermostat, and keeping isopods at room temperature explains why a British living room is not the warm room it feels like.
Humidity: High, With a Gradient and Moving Air
The band is 75 to 85%, which is cave-Cubaris territory, and the mistake is to read that as "keep it wet". The top of the band is the damp end. Build the enclosure with a gradient: sphagnum kept moist at one side, the substrate surface allowed to dry back toward the bottom of the band at the other, and air moving through the box the whole time. I run two to four large vents on an 11-litre tub and an oscillating fan across the shelf, and a tub at the bottom of the band with fresh air is in better shape than one at the top with condensation on the lid. Stagnant, saturated air is what finishes premium Cubaris; moulting failures and sudden losses follow it. The same outside sheet gives 60 to 80% for this animal, which shows how much opinion there is; the panel's band is the one to keep. The reasoning is in our humidity guide, the vents and fans are in ventilation and humidity, and if white fuzz starts on the wood the mould guide says what it means.
Substrate and Calcium: A Limestone Animal
They burrow, so the substrate wants depth, enough to dig into, and it wants to be food: flake soil, crumbled white-rotted hardwood and organic topsoil, with no coco coir in the base, because coir holds water and feeds nothing to an animal that eats its floor. Through that mix goes calcium, and plenty of it. The Thai Cubaris come from limestone country, and a permanent source is not optional: a piece of limestone in the tub, crushed oyster shell or cuttlebone worked through the substrate, topped up before it runs out. The substrate guide has the mix and the calcium guide the reasoning. Over the top, a deep layer of magnolia and oak leaf litter, cork bark and a few pieces of rotting wood for the dark, humid hides a cave Cubaris wants.
Feeding
Leaf litter and rotting wood always available; soft vegetable a couple of times a week, courgette, squash or sweet potato, lifted before it moulds; and protein. Here the sources part company: the listing says a little protein occasionally, and one outside sheet wants it at least twice a week. I feed a varied diet across the whole range because variety lifts breeding, and with a Cubaris a small amount of protein offered regularly, with the leftovers lifted the next day, is safer than a large piece once a week left to turn. Uneaten protein in a warm, humid tub is how mites and fungus gnats arrive. Our guides to feeding insects to isopods and supplements cover the choices, and a culture of springtails in the same tub deals with the crumbs.
Breeding: The Premium Cubaris Pace
Steady rather than explosive. The female carries her brood in a marsupium under the body and releases live young a few at a time, and they arrive paler than the adults, the orange and the red-eye contrast filling in over successive moults. One sheet rates the reproduction "fair" and the growth "normal to slow", which matches the listing's steady rather than explosive: warmth held in the band, the humidity gradient, calcium in and the colony left alone, and it builds over months rather than weeks. Start with twenty or more animals if a colony rather than a display group is the aim, for the reasons in how many isopods you need to start a colony, and give a new group a few months before judging either its colour or its numbers. If nothing has moved after six months the breeding troubleshooting guide works through the causes, and with a cave Cubaris the first two to check are the temperature floor and stale air.
Behaviour
The listing calls this a bold, visible colony, and one outside sheet calls the species mostly night-active. Both can be true of a Cubaris; a colony that spends the day in its hides can still be a bold one once the lights are down, and the two descriptions do not contradict each other. The photographs on the listing show the animals out on bark and stone, which is as much as a photograph can say.
Who This Species Suits
The panel rates it medium difficulty and uncommon, and it is a second or third Cubaris rather than a first. If you have not kept the genus, the Cubaris murina family teaches the humidity band and the calcium habit on a hardier animal; come to this one when a heated, ventilated, gradient-led tub is already second nature. Where it belongs is with the warm-toned premium Cubaris: the Orange Freezy with its frozen-looking skirt, the Red Edge Orange, and the Rubber Ducky that drove the genus's rise in the hobby; the Giant Mandarin is the red-eyed one on that warm-toned shelf. Our complete Cubaris care guide covers the genus routine in full, types of Cubaris isopods places it among the rest, and the whole family is in the Cubaris collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Giant Mandarin the same as the Cubaris murina Mandarin?
No. The murina Mandarin is an orange colour form of Cubaris murina, a small described species without the red eyes and with easy care. The Giant Mandarin is an unnamed Thai Cubaris sp., around 17 mm, with red eyes and cave-Cubaris care. Different species, same colour, unfortunately similar names.
Why does it have red eyes?
Nobody has published a reason, because nobody has published the species. It is the feature the hobby uses to identify the line, and it is what the photographs on our listing show.
Do Giant Mandarin isopods need heating in the UK?
Yes, for most of the year. The band is 21 to 26°C and an English home averages around 19°C over the heating season, so a heat cable or a side-mounted mat on a thermostat is part of the setup rather than an extra.
What humidity do they need?
75 to 85%, with the damp end at the top of the band, the dry side at the bottom of it, and cross-ventilation. High humidity and fresh air together; a sealed wet tub is what kills premium Cubaris.
How big do they get?
Around 17 mm, which is what the listing says and what one outside care sheet gives as the maximum. That makes it roughly three times the bulk of the murina Mandarin.
How fast do they breed?
At the premium Cubaris pace: a colony builds over months, the young arrive pale and colour up with each moult, and stable warmth, humidity and calcium are what move it along.
Are they a good first Cubaris?
Not the first. Learn the routine on Cubaris murina or a Panda King, then step up. Once the tub is right the medium rating is mostly about keeping it that way, and the listing calls them a bold, visible colony.
Every colony leaves us captive-bred, packed in a ventilated deli tub on damp sphagnum inside a double-walled box, sent Monday to Thursday by Royal Mail next day before 1pm with a 20% overcount and our live arrival guarantee. The Giant Mandarin listing shows what is in stock, and the heat cable, vents, limestone and leaf litter are in our accessories range.
Leave a comment