{"product_id":"porcellio-silvestrii-black-senia-isopods","title":"Porcellio silvestrii 'Black Senia' Isopods for Sale","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe made up the place name. This listing said the line was \"named after the La Senia region of Tarragona in northeast Catalonia, Spain - the same locality that produces the spectacular \u003cem\u003ePorcellio expansus\u003c\/em\u003e 'La Senia' at 50mm+\", and described the two as sharing a Mediterranean karst landscape. La Sénia is a real municipality and it really is where the \u003ca href=\"\/products\/expansus-la-senia\"\u003eexpansus La Sénia\u003c\/a\u003e line is tagged from. But nothing anywhere connects the Senia in this animal's name to that place. It could be a locality, a breeder's line name, a person, or a word that drifted across from the neighbouring listing on our own site. We wrote a provenance story out of a coincidence of spelling, and it has gone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe handle carried a doubled a as well - \"seniaa\" - a typo we fixed in August 2026, with a redirect from the old address.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat is left when the story goes\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA dark charcoal to near-black line of \u003cem\u003ePorcellio silvestrii\u003c\/em\u003e, which Arcangeli published in 1924 as a form of \u003cem\u003eP. monticola\u003c\/em\u003e before it was given species rank of its own. The distribution is the one solid thing here: more than a hundred records, every one Spanish, with Catalonia and Valencia carrying almost all of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond the colour we cannot separate this from the base animal for you. No seller outside this site uses the name. When the Spanish trade was audited in 2024 the species turned up in twenty shops with exactly one commercial variety logged against it, so we will not pretend these are three distinct lines in a sense a taxonomist would recognise. What they are is three colour selections we keep and breed separately, and that is what you are buying.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eThe size problem, since we caused it\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe figure here was 15 to 20mm. Our two sibling pages for the same species both said up to 25mm. One species, two figures, and nothing published to arbitrate between them - no measured series exists for \u003cem\u003eP. silvestrii\u003c\/em\u003e anywhere we can find, and the 25mm circulating among sellers is one unsourced number being copied around. Ours sit between a common rough woodlouse and a Spanish giant. We would rather say that than pick one of our own numbers and defend it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe species has two junior synonyms, published in 1954 and 1955 by different workers, which tells you it was described more than once by people who did not recognise it. That is common in this genus and it is part of why the trade names sit on such thin ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eKeeping them\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA room at 18 to 24°C does it, unheated, all year in Britain. Humidity 50 to 70%, dry-leaning, with a damp corner they can choose. Neither figure comes from a study, because none exists. And give it real airflow - this is not a stagnant-humid species, and a wet still tub is the usual way to lose one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFive centimetres of substrate is ample; what matters is what sits on it. Stack flat stone and bark so there are tight gaps to wedge into, bed it with litter and white-rotted hardwood, leave calcium in, and give protein about once a week.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDark animals show up badly against dark substrate, which is the one practical thing worth planning for. A pale limestone chip or a light bark flat gives you somewhere to actually see them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo conglobation - they run, or flatten and grip. Large Iberian \u003cem\u003ePorcellio\u003c\/em\u003e can raise the rear of the body defensively, which looks like the start of a roll and never becomes one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey are guaranteed to reach your door alive. Sending is Monday to Thursday, next working day, in a vented cup bedded on moist sphagnum inside twin-wall card, and we put a fifth again on top of the count you paid for.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PostPods","offers":[{"title":"10","offer_id":55843823223166,"sku":null,"price":55.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"20","offer_id":55843823255934,"sku":null,"price":100.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"5","offer_id":55843823288702,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0759\/0707\/2294\/files\/porcellio-silvestri-black-senia-isopods-571442.jpg?v=1750615832","url":"https:\/\/postpods.co.uk\/products\/porcellio-silvestrii-black-senia-isopods","provider":"PostPods","version":"1.0","type":"link"}