Itsy Bitty Teeny Weeny Orange Polka-dotted Roachies...

I mean the pronotum is kinda polka dotted with black, right? 🤷‍♂️ I dunno, was trying to come up with a title that described how small this adult Hormetica strumosa female came out, and then I got that song stuck in my head... It's a working title I guess. 😜

Yeah so about a week ago Alan Jeon gave me a heads up that his first Hormetica strumosa from this generation had matured, and was only about the size of an adult Luchihormetica subcincta, (less than half the size this species is supposed to be when mature). Apparently he kept his entire colony in a one gallon container, I did the same with six half grown nymphs I bought back in 2017, and they came out rather small for this species, just under the size of an average Lucihormetica grossei adult. But for half of their lives those nymphs had been housed in a much larger setup, whereas these new nymphs I got from Alan a couple months ago had been housed in a crowded one gallon bin their whole lives... So long story short, these adults probably hold the world record for smallest H.strumosa out there! 😂

Now, when I found the first adult Hormetica in their enclosure the other day, I just laughed off the smallness, since I expected this and it honestly shouldn't affect the health of the roaches, they'll just give birth to smaller broods, which I can then rear up to a normal size myself in a large container.
However, I was disappointed to see that this adult female, the first adult female I've ever seen in person, had come out with messed up wings... 😕 Apparently I packed the substrate down in their enclosure a bit too much and crammed too much in there, I think she didn't have enough airspace in the enclosure to make a proper molting chamber or tunnel and thus wasn't able to expand her wings properly... Hopefully this will just be a cosmetic issue and not affect her health or breeding ability at all, but I've removed some substrate from the enclosure to ensure this won't be a problem for the other three nymphs in there when they mature.

Anyways, here are some pictures of her:

Still beautiful despite the messed up wings, really hope she does well for me and produces a couple broods in my care, fingers crossed! 🤞
I'll be sure to keep you all updated on these beauties, hopefully the rest will be mature here soon and I can get to breeding these tiny adults, and then hopefully rear up their offspring to a normal size! 😅

Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see ya next time! 😉