The other day, I decided to start playing Habitarium on Neopets; in the past, I always thought it was pointless and dull, but you can actually potentially rake in a huge sum of Neopoints from it; up to 100,000 Neopoints a day once you get to level 50. It requires little interaction; you can leave it open on another tab all day, and only check in on it every so often.
When I started playing, all of my bugs were dead; in the past I had created a Habitarium, but I got to level two and just ditched it. All of my bugs died as a result of raids and neglect. Since I no longer had any bugs, I was rewarded three new ones. They were all Larnikins, which are these fat, ugly things that resemble red potatoes. You normally get one of each available species, but for whatever reason I did not. I was disappointed; Larnikins are my least favorite of the three bugs. I prefer Pinchits, which are cute little yellow and orange crab type things with green legs. Sometimes you receive eggs when you level up, and that's pretty much the only way to get certain types of bugs if you don't currently own them for whatever reason. I was never given any Pinchit eggs; only Larnikin and Mootix, which are these weird little green and yellow bugs. So my Habitarium was inhabited completely by Larnikins and Mootixes alone. I had around eleven bugs at my peak... and then something strange happened. Earlier, I left the computer for five minutes to talk with my mom, and when I returned, half of my bugs had been replaced by eerily smiling white gems, which indicated that they had died. It was very peculiar; there were no red gems lying around, which are produced when an enemy bug is slain. They couldn't have possibly died from a pest invasion gone wrong in that case. I had not been alerted about a raid, so that was out of the question as well. What could have possibly killed my unfortunate insects? They weren't hungry or anything; in fact, I recalled putting them all in houses to replenish their needs. I decided to ignore the strange occurrence, but shortly after it happened again. Another large portion of my bugs had died for no reason at all. Once again, I remembered putting them in houses to restore their needs, but I didn't link that with the deaths. I was quickly reduced to one bug; a Larnikin nester I had recently hatched. It wasn't until then that I learned what was going on with the mass Habitarium extinction; it was happening for everyone, and the deaths were a result of a crazy glitch that had apparently happened once before. Putting bugs in any building would kill them for some reason. I also read that eggs would grow to monstrous proportions, but I never actually experienced this because I was too concerned about the deaths to breed my insects. With my newly gained knowledge, I threw my last Larnikin nester into a house so that I would get three more bugs. Unsurprisingly, it died within a minute or so. I was left with a white gem, and three new bugs to take care of; a Mootix nester, a Larnikin soldier, and a Pinchit worker. It felt sort of nice to start fresh, and I finally got to own a Pinchit! I was still disappointed that I lost all of my bugs from before, though; with them, my Habitarium ran very smoothly and they did a nice job of gathering resources. I vowed not to place my new trio in any buildings; I wouldn't even let my Mootix nest. I monitored them closely, restoring their needs with costly food items rather than the cost efficient houses. But to my puzzlement, their hunger bars were dropping unnaturally fast; mere seconds after they had stuffed their faces, they were starving again. I had to constantly buy them specks of cheese to keep them nourished, which was quickly depleting my resources. On top of that, I was soon presented with yet another aspect of the glitch. You see, I always keep the Habitarium music off but the sound on so I can detect pest invasions and level ups. I was chatting with Dapple on Chatzy, when all of the sudden my ears are blasted by this sharp hissing noise. It nearly made me fall out of my chair. I knew instantly that it had come from Habitarium, but when I opened the tab, my bugs were walking about as usual. There was no explanation for the random noise. A short while later, it happened again... and it freaked me out all the same. It turned out that this noise normally occurred when a pest destroyed a building, except it wasn't nearly as loud. The noise playing suddenly and randomly and being amplified was just another characteristic of the glitch. Not too long after, I just gave up and closed Habitarium. It wasn't worth it to spend all my resources on food for three bugs who were incapable of replenishing them. I was also sick of being spooked by the creepy hissing sound as well.
Thankfully, the glitch now appears to be resolved. I tried playing Habitarium again later, and I managed to fully restore my nester's needs by sticking her in a house. Everything's running smoothly again now; my Mootix is incubating an egg, my Larnikin is scouting for enemies, and my Pinchit is harvesting mud. Hopefully I'll be able to repopulate my Habitarium and get back on the path of reaching level 50... and hopefully no more freaky glitches like this occur again anytime soon.