Cubaris sp. 'Platin Tung Song' Isopods for Sale

The name is half colour and half place, and both halves are worth unpacking. "Platin" is simply the German word for platinum, applied by the European sellers who first moved this animal, describing the silver-grey base. "Tung Song" is Thung Song, a district in the south-western part of Nakhon Si Thammarat province in southern Thailand. This page used to tell you the district name means "two fields" in Thai. We cannot source that, so we have stopped translating it. One of its subdistricts is called Tham Yai, large cave, which is suggestive and nothing more.

That locality is unusually well supported for an undescribed Cubaris. Seven independent sellers state it in their own words, one of them using the correct Thai romanisation, and neighbouring districts turn up as trade tags for other animals in the same way. It is still vendor-asserted provenance and not a collection record: no scientific source connects any isopod to Thung Song. This page previously stated flatly that the animal was discovered in the limestone caves there, which was more than we knew.

What it looks like

Not plain silver. Five independent sellers describe the same thing in different words: a silver-grey to bronze or warm-toned body carrying fine orange-yellow markings, usually gathered along the midline. One UK breeder notes that a proportion of animals from his culture come out distinctly blue or purple instead. It is a patterned animal, and any description that stops at "metallic" is missing the half that makes it worth having.

Sizes across the trade run from about 9mm to 15mm. Ours settle around the middle of that. There is no published measurement because there is no described specimen - this is an undescribed trade morph with no type, no scientific name beyond Cubaris sp., and no formal locality.

Conditions

Sellers converge on roughly 22 to 27°C, tighter agreement than most animals in this catalogue get. We run 23 to 26°C and 70 to 85% on a gradient, with moderate ventilation rather than heavy cross-flow - this is a limestone-cave animal and it wants humid, still-ish air. Moderate is not sealed, though: overwetting is the leading cause of losses in the premium Thai Cubaris, so keep a drier end and let the surface breathe.

Six to eight centimetres of substrate with rotted hardwood through it, litter piled on top, cork laid flat, a corner of sphagnum. Leave crushed oyster shell or limestone in permanently; do not dust it over the food.

Disturbed, it shuts into a sphere, and a marked metallic ball is half of why people want this one - it photographs unusually well. On difficulty the trade splits, three sellers calling it a beginner animal and three calling it intermediate. We would put it in the middle: nothing about the husbandry is demanding, but it is slow to get going and an impatient keeper will assume something is wrong. Several sellers independently describe the same pattern - shy and hidden at first, then steady once the colony has numbers. Ours behaved exactly that way.

One thing to check before you order

We also list a Platinum, and the two are easy to confuse by name. The practical difference is pattern: that one is a plainer, smaller animal, soft silver with no orange-yellow markings and adults under 13mm. This one is marked. If you want the patterned animal, this is the page. Worth adding that "Platin" attaches to more than one locality line in the trade, so the word on its own tells you very little.

Parcels go out Tuesday to Thursday most weeks, occasionally Monday, for next-working-day arrival. A perforated cup, sphagnum kept just damp, doubled corrugated card, 20% over the number you paid for, and a guarantee that they reach you alive. The genus is under Cubaris.