I plan on acquiring a certain bark mantis species sometime next year from Brandon, and in order to feed their young, I'll need tiny feeders. I did get some Sinella curviseta springtails (yuck) in this package, which will be good for little mantis hatchlings, but as they molt they'll need small, but more substantial prey. Compsodes schwarzi roaches fill just that category, and so Brandon sent me a bunch of them to get a colony started ASAP!
I've kept these tiny US native Corydiids before, so they won't get too much fanfare, but I decided to get some pictures of them anyways, because why not?
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| Short winged adult male and subadult male |
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| Subadult male |
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| Adult male |
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| Adult female |
Neat little species, hopefully they get to the baby-making pronto! 🤞
Now for a species I've never kept before, since I'm apparently on a micro Corydioid kick! 😂 These are even smaller than Compsodes, and may in fact be the smallest roach currently in culture (in the US at least), the diminutive Nocticola sp. "Malaysia"! 😁 These tiny roaches are in a different family than Compsodes and Myrmecoblatta, while those are in the family Corydiidae, Nocticola are in the family Nocticolidae, but both families are in the superfamily Corydioidea. Adult females of this species lack wings, can't climb smooth surfaces well. I don't know about males, as I don't think any of the adults I received are males.
I've got my group set up in a small, minimally ventilated enclosure with a substrate of coconut fiber, with bark chips mixed in. There is long fibered sphagnum moss strewn on top for cover, as well as some cork tile hides. I'm keeping them humid, and at around 70-75F°. I'll be offering them chick feed and maybe the occasional piece of fruit for food.
Here are some pictures of adult females and some oothecae, they are super tiny and thus were pretty hard to photograph, but I think I got some OK shots:
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| Adult females |
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| Adult female carrying ootheca |
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| Ootheca |
A very cool little species that I'm glad to see is becoming well established in the US hobby, I love these micro Corydioids and hope to see more enter culture! 😁
Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
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