Cubaris sp. 'Giant Mandarin' Isopods

Plenty of Cubaris come in orange; the Giant Mandarin adds a detail almost none of them have, a pair of clear red eyes that stand out sharply against the tangerine body. It is the feature keepers notice first and the easiest way to tell the species at a glance. The rest of the animal lives up to the "Giant" in the name: at around 17 mm it is roughly three times the bulk of the popular Cubaris murina 'Mandarin' it is often compared to, so it brings the familiar duck-faced Cubaris look in a much more substantial package. The orange itself ranges from lighter tangerine to a deeper hue and tends to intensify with age as the colony moults through.

It is a Thai species, one of the larger warm-orange Cubaris in the hobby, and it makes a bold, visible colony rather than a shy one. For a keeper who likes the Cubaris aesthetic but wants an animal with real presence, the size and the red eyes together make it stand out on a shelf of premium isopods. It sits comfortably alongside the classic Cubaris such as the Rubber Ducky and the gateway Panda King.

Care follows the Cubaris pattern, which is a touch more involved than the hardy Mediterranean species but well within reach. These are cave-adapted Thai animals that want warmth and steady humidity with a gradient, not a wet box: keep a damp end and a drier end, mist to maintain moisture rather than soaking, and run cross-ventilation to keep the air fresh. Aim for room temperatures on the warm side and hold the humidity up without letting the enclosure go stagnant. In practice that means somewhere around 21 to 26°C, with humidity high at the damp end, roughly 75 to 85 per cent, tapering to a drier zone at the other side so the colony can choose.

Give a starter colony a five to ten litre tub with a clip-lock lid and cross-vented sides. For substrate use a living base of flake soil, well-rotted hardwood and organic topsoil, deep enough to burrow, and work plenty of calcium through it, crushed limestone, cuttlebone or oyster shell, since the cave Cubaris are limestone animals and lean on calcium for clean moults. Coco coir on its own is best avoided as a base; it holds damp but feeds nothing as it breaks down.

Top the substrate with a thick layer of magnolia and oak leaf litter and add cork bark and a few pieces of rotting wood for cover, the kind of dark, humid hiding places these animals favour. Feeding is straightforward: leaf litter and decaying wood as the always-available base, soft veg like courgette, squash and sweet potato a couple of times a week with leftovers lifted promptly, and an occasional little protein to support a breeding colony.

Like most premium Cubaris the Giant Mandarin breeds at a steady rather than explosive pace, the female carrying young in a brood pouch and releasing live miniatures a few at a time; given warmth, humidity and calcium a colony builds reliably over time. Juveniles arrive paler, with the deep orange and the red-eye contrast filling in over successive moults, so give a young group a few months before judging its colour. Pair them with a springtail culture to keep mould in check in the humid corners. Every order is captive-bred, 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 as standard.