Soil Isopods (Cubaris / Troglodillo sp.)

The name does them no favours. 'Soil Isopods' sounds like a plain clean-up crew, the sort of small grey workers you tuck into the corner of a vivarium and forget about. In person they are nothing of the sort. These are large, flat animals in deep purple-to-black, finished with bright white antennae, and that contrast is the first thing you notice when the lid comes off. They have been sold for years as Cubaris sp., though recent taxonomic work links them to the genus Troglodillo, so you will see them listed either way, as Cubaris / Troglodillo sp.

Some keepers call them Gothic Isopods, or The Black Evil, and the moody names suit the colour until you look closely and find the same soft, rounded rubber-duck face you get on our Rubber Ducky isopods. At 15 to 20 mm they sit among the larger Cubaris, big enough to watch from across a room rather than hunt for with a torch. Where a warm morph like our Sunset or the patterned Panda King draws the eye with colour and marking, Soil Isopods do it with sheer depth of shade, and they hold their own beside anything else you keep.

They come from shaded, humid tropical forest, and they are happiest kept warm, somewhere around 22 to 26°C. What matters most is a humidity gradient rather than a uniformly wet box. Keep one end damp, with a patch of sphagnum moss, and let the far end run drier, so the colony can settle at the moisture level that suits it through the day. The substrate should read as moist, never waterlogged, with no standing water pooling at the base.

Give them a deep, living substrate to burrow and moult in, at least 7 to 10 cm of it. A rich base like our flake soil holds moisture well and feeds them slowly as it breaks down. Mix powdered limestone or another calcium source through the full depth, since steady calcium is what carries them through each moult. On top, pile on generous leaf litter and a few pieces of decaying wood. Large magnolia leaf litter lasts well and gives them both food and cover.

Cross-ventilation keeps the air fresh without drying everything out. A few small holes on opposite sides move air far better than one wide vent, and they head off the mould that can take hold in a warm, damp tub. Add flat rocks or bark for them to sit on, keep the enclosure out of bright light, and expect them to surface more when humidity is high and tuck away during drier spells. None of that is cause for concern. It just mirrors the wet and dry seasons of the forest floor.

For an animal with such a striking look, I find them refreshingly hardy and adaptable, forgiving of the small swings a normal home throws at them, and a steady breeder once settled. Like other Cubaris they roll into a tight armoured ball when startled, which, set against that dark shell, makes for a handsome little defensive display. Give a new group a couple of months to find their feet before you expect much, and resist digging about for young, since undisturbed colonies do far better.

Every order is captive-bred here in the UK, boxed double-walled around a ventilated tub of damp sphagnum and posted Monday to Thursday by tracked next-day Royal Mail, with a live-arrival guarantee and a small overcount included as standard.