Ignamba sp. Nigeria Isopods for Sale

Almost nobody else keeps this animal. We have looked across the UK, Europe and the US and found only a handful of North American mentions: one seller and one private keeper using the same name and the same country, and a hobby database entry that files the animal as Mesarmadillo sp. 'Nigeria'. Worth stating up front, because the fact cuts both ways: you will find almost no second opinion on anything below, and very few other places to get the animal.

Our supplier gave the locality as Nigeria and we have kept it. But we owe you the awkward part, which is that the genus and the country do not match up in the scientific record. Ignamba was erected by Budde-Lund in 1910 on material from the Swedish expedition to Kilimanjaro. Five species have been described in it: two from Tanzania, three from Malawi. Every occurrence record in the global databases is a Kilimanjaro museum specimen. There is nothing from Nigeria, and nothing from West Africa at all - that is around four thousand kilometres and a different biogeographic region away.

So one of three things is true. The animal is not Ignamba; or it is not from Nigeria; or it is a real range extension nobody has written up. Which one, we do not know, and we decline to pick whichever of the three flatters us most.

Two things on our previous version of this page were also wrong, and we would rather list them than quietly swap them out. It said the name was probably a corruption of Niambia, a different genus in a different family. And it stated that they do not roll. The genus Ignamba is real and sits in Eubelidae; on rolling, see below.

What it is, as far as anyone knows

Family Eubelidae, which is a real and useful thing to know rather than a formality. The ability to roll into a ball is one of the formal diagnostic characters of that family, alongside the uropod structure and the arched groove on the first coxal plates. So this is a rolling isopod by family membership. We say it that way deliberately: no published source describes conglobation in this genus specifically, and none describes this animal at all.

No size has been published for this animal, and no description of its appearance exists anywhere. Our previous version of this page printed 10 to 18mm and a lifespan of one and a half to two and a half years. Neither had a source and both are withdrawn.

The family itself is mostly tropical African, with outliers in south-eastern Asia and on the Arabian Peninsula, so a eubelid in West Africa would raise nobody's eyebrows. It is Ignamba specifically that has never been recorded there.

Our shelf settings

Warm and humid, 24 to 28°C - though we should say we run them warm because the family is mostly lowland tropical, and if the Kilimanjaro and Malawi records reflect where the genus actually lives then cooler may suit them better. Nobody knows. What follows is what we do, not what is right.

The settings: with a substrate that drains instead of sitting wet. Around 60 to 85% humidity across a gradient, deep leaf litter, cork bark and sphagnum in one corner, moderate airflow so the air never sits still. Calcium permanently available through cuttlebone or oyster shell, and protein occasionally.

If you keep tropical isopods already you will recognise the shape of it.

One consequence of being one of very few sources: if the culture crashes for you, there may be nobody else to replace it from. Buy accordingly, and buy more than you think you need.

Provenance

Ours are captive-bred. For a while this page treated them as probably wild-caught, a cautious guess about an African isopod with almost no hobby footprint, and the guess was wrong.

They are packed like any of our tropical isopods: a punched tub, moss kept damp without being wet, and a two-ply box. Sending happens Monday to Thursday. We put 20% over your count in the pot, and guarantee the animals arrive alive.