How New Isopod Species Enter the UK Hobby

The UK isopod hobby keeps expanding. Species that had never been kept ten years ago are now breeding colonies in British homes, new colour morphs come out of selective breeding projects every year, and scientific work keeps describing and renaming the animals we already keep. This article explains what "new" actually means when a species turns up on a UK shelf, how captive breeding gets it there, and what to look for before you buy one.

For what is actually new in stock right now, browse our new arrivals collection. This article is the longer story behind those listings.

What "New" Means in the Isopod Hobby

"New" covers four different things, and it helps to know which one you are looking at.

New to Culture

The biggest category. A species or a locality strain that has existed in nature for millions of years is kept and bred in captivity for the first time, and from that founder colony every animal in the hobby descends. Most of the Cubaris and Ardentiella lines in UK collections arrived this way over the last decade, and so did many of the Spanish and Italian Porcellio. These are not new species to science. They are new to the hobby, and they usually carry a trade name (Rubber Ducky, Panda King, Cappuccino) rather than a scientific one, which is why the same animal can turn up under two different names.

New Colour Morphs

UK and European breeders develop new colour lines from established species all the time, by selecting the naturally occurring variation in a colony and pairing it up over many generations until it breeds true:

• Porcellio scaber morphs - Dalmatian, Lava, Orange, Lemon Blue, Albino and many more, all bred out of a species native to Britain
• Armadillidium vulgare morphs - Magic Potion, Jelly Bean, Saint Lucia and the red lines, from the common pill woodlouse
• Porcellionides pruinosus morphs - Powder Orange, Powder Blue, Powder White and the others
• Cubaris lines - the Red, Pink, White and Citrus forms of the Panda King, and the Albino and Helios forms of the Rubber Ducky

A stable morph is years of patient pairing. When one is first released it is scarce because only one or two breeders hold it.

Newly Described Species

Science still describes new isopods regularly. The supergiant Bathynomus vaderi, a deep-sea species from Vietnamese waters, was described in January 2025; cave systems and tropical forest floors keep yielding new terrestrial species too. Almost none of these are in the hobby, and a description in a journal says nothing about availability. The route from "described" to "captive-bred and available in the UK" takes years, and it only happens for species that will actually live and breed in a tub. Anything offered for sale very soon after a scientific description is unlikely to be what it claims to be.

Renamed

Sometimes an animal "becomes new" because its name changes. The most important recent case for UK keepers: in March 2025 Kästle and Regalado Fernández published a reassessment of the genus Merulanella in Natural History Collections and Museomics, and showed that the hobby's Vietnamese "Merulanella" species (Scarlet, Yellow Phoenix, Lava, Batman, Tri-Colour and the rest) are not Merulanella at all. They now belong to a new genus, Ardentiella, while the name Merulanella stays with three older species that are not in culture.

Same animals, corrected name. Nothing about their care changed. Browse our Ardentiella collection for the species the hobby used to call Merulanella.

From Founder Colony to Your Shelf

For a species that is new to culture, the journey to a UK keeper's tub runs through breeding. It usually looks like this:

1. A founder colony is established - a specialist breeder, often in the animal's home country and sometimes in Europe, gets a small group living and breeding in captivity. Working out the substrate, the humidity gradient and the temperature a species needs can take one to three years.
2. The first captive generations are raised - once the animals are breeding, the breeder grows the colony through several generations and the husbandry settles into something repeatable.
3. Breeders share stock - small groups of captive-bred offspring go to other experienced breeders, who start colonies of their own. Losing one colony no longer means losing the species.
4. UK breeders establish their own lines - once British breeders are raising their own generations, UK keepers can buy animals bred here, from someone who can tell them exactly how the parents were kept.
5. The species goes mainstream - several UK breeders, stable colonies, published care guidance, and the animal stops being a talking point and becomes a species you can simply keep.

The whole process can take five to ten years. A newly available species is scarce because only a handful of captive colonies exist yet, and that is the whole reason, not any rarity of the animal in the wild.

What to Look For in a "New Arrival"

If you are thinking about a newly available species, the useful question is how long it has been in culture.

Established Captive Lines

The safest choice. A species that has been bred in the UK for two or three years has:

• Settled husbandry - UK keepers have worked out what it needs and written it down
• Several breeders holding it - if one colony crashes, the species does not disappear
• Generations of captive breeding behind it - animals from a long-established line are adapted to life in a tub and come with a known husbandry history
• Easier availability - you are buying a colony that is ready to breed on, not a gamble

Newly Established Lines

Rewarding for experienced keepers, but a different proposition:

• Scarce stock, so you may be buying a small starter group and building it up yourself
• Limited husbandry data - you may be among the first UK keepers, and your notes will matter to everyone who comes after
• Breeding may take longer to get going while the right conditions are found
• A real contribution to UK hobby knowledge if you record what works

Whichever you choose, ask the seller two things: whether the animals are captive-bred, and how the parent colony was kept. A breeder who raised the animals can answer both without hesitating. Everything we sell is captive-bred here, and every listing carries the temperature and humidity band the species wants.

Newly Described Species: Not an Option Yet

Almost never the right choice for a general keeper, because almost none are in culture. Newly described deep-sea and cave species are known from a handful of specimens in museum jars, not from breeding colonies.

Examples of How Species Reached UK Keepers

Rubber Ducky (Cubaris sp. "Rubber Ducky")

A limestone-cave species from the Pak Chong district of Thailand that entered culture in the late 2010s. Within a few years it was breeding reliably in Europe and then with British breeders, and it is now one of the most widely kept Cubaris in the country, with several UK lines. Browse our Rubber Ducky Isopods.

Panda King (Cubaris sp. "Panda King")

A cave species from Vietnam on keepers' accounts (a different lineage from the Thai Rubber Ducky group, despite being sold alongside it). In culture since the late 2010s, mainstream now, with selected colour forms of its own. Browse our Panda King Isopods.

Cappuccino (Cubaris sp.)

A Thai Cubaris sold under a trade name, and not a form of the cosmopolitan C. murina as it is sometimes filed. Named for its coffee-and-cream marbling. Browse our Cappuccino Isopods.

The Porcellio scaber Morphs

The opposite route: nothing new to culture at all, just decades of selective breeding by UK and continental keepers from a species that lives under every British log. Dalmatian, Lava, Orange, Lemon Blue, Albino and the rest all came out of that patience. Browse our Porcellio scaber Mix.

The Ardentiella Species

The Vietnamese forest species the hobby knew as Merulanella have been in culture since the mid-2010s and established with UK breeders since the late 2010s; the 2025 revision gave them their proper genus name. Browse our Ardentiella collection.

Why the UK Hobby Keeps Growing

The range of species available to UK keepers keeps widening for a few plain reasons:

• Keepers talk to each other - breeding notes, successes and failures move around the hobby in days through social media, clubs and shows, so husbandry that took one breeder years is common knowledge the next season
• Better husbandry - demanding animals such as the cave-origin Cubaris were once notorious for crashing; a better understanding of ventilation, substrate and calcium means more of them can now be bred reliably
• Selective breeding has matured - established UK and European breeders keep producing new colour lines through patient genetic work
• More British breeding capacity - more UK keepers are breeding seriously, so more species are being raised here, generation after generation
• A bigger hobby - more keepers means more demand, more breeders and more colonies of every species

Current Stock and Where to Find New Arrivals

For what is new at PostPods right now:

• Browse our new arrivals collection - the current listings
• Browse our special offers - what is on offer right now
• Follow our social media - Instagram, Facebook and TikTok carry the announcements when a limited line is ready

For broader browsing:

• Cubaris collection - Thai and Vietnamese species and morphs
• Ardentiella collection - the Vietnamese species formerly called Merulanella
• Armadillidium collection - the Mediterranean pill woodlice and their morphs
• Porcellio collection - UK-bred morphs and the Spanish species
• Full isopods collection - everything we work with

The Honest Verdict

The UK isopod hobby keeps growing because of breeders. Every "new arrival" on a British shelf is years of somebody's captive breeding, sometimes decades of selective breeding on top, and a network of keepers passing on both the animals and what they learned about keeping them.

For new keepers, our new collector's guide covers how to get started, and our accessories collection has the setup essentials.