Porcellio hoffmannseggii 'Orange' Isopods

Take the Titan, one of the largest woodlice anyone keeps, and swap its plain grey for warm orange. That is the whole pitch, and it is a strong one. What you are looking at is Porcellio hoffmannseggii 'Orange', the orange colour morph of the giant Iberian Titan woodlouse (P. hoffmannseggii). It carries every bit of the size and presence that made the standard grey Titan a flagship, then dresses it in a colour that pulls your eye straight across the room.

Where the standard Titan wears grey with a pale skirt, the Orange morph blazes warm orange right across a large, robust, flared body that ranks among the biggest terrestrial isopods in the hobby. These are heavy, commanding animals with a hard segmented shell and a broad outline, and the colour deepens as they mature. Like all Porcellio, the Titan does not conglobate, so there is no rolling into a neat ball; it leans on size, speed and cover for defence instead. It sits in the same stable as its siblings the frost-white 'Yeti' and the 'White Antenna' forms, and keeping the orange line pure means housing it away from those other morphs.

The appeal is simple. Few isopods pair this scale with this much warm colour, which makes the Orange Titan a centrepiece rather than a hidden cleanup crew. It brings the same assertive, spread-out character as the grey form, with males holding their own space and juveniles staking out territories as they grow, so there is behaviour to watch as well as colour to admire. If you are building a collection of giants, it sits comfortably beside another heavyweight like Porcellio magnificus. This is a large-species keeper's isopod rather than a first colony, and it rewards a little experience with dry Porcellio; you can compare the whole genus across the Porcellio collection.

Care is the dry, advanced end of Porcellio keeping, scaled up for a large animal. Keep it warm at 20–26°C and mostly dry, with a moisture gradient rather than uniform damp: one end reliably moist, the rest allowed to dry out, and medium to high ventilation to keep the air moving. Give it a deep substrate so it can burrow, enriched with flake soil and plenty of decaying hardwood. Calcium is not optional for a woodlouse this size, since every moult draws on it, so leave cuttlebone or crushed limestone in permanently. Offer protein in moderation alongside the wood and the odd vegetable. Clear away anything fresh before it sours, and keep the airflow up so the dry majority of the enclosure stays dry. A modest springtail culture tucked into the damp end helps manage mould around fresh food without pushing the humidity higher than the Titan wants.

Give the colony space, because large males can be territorial and constant squabbling over cramped ground stalls everything. Scatter cork bark, tubes and wood so individuals can settle apart, and let numbers build at their own pace. This is a slower, steadier breeder than the weedy quick-turnover species; patience and a settled colony are the reward, with females carrying young in the marsupium and shepherding the juveniles through their first moults. For more on how the giants differ, our guide to the different types of Porcellio isopods is a good place to start.

Every order is captive-bred and packed for the journey: a ventilated tub over a bed of damp sphagnum, cushioned inside a double-walled box. We dispatch Monday to Thursday by tracked next-day Royal Mail, aiming for delivery by 1pm, and every parcel is covered by our live-arrival guarantee. We always include a 20% overcount, so your colony starts with a few extra.