A Metallic Newcomer: Eucorydia linglong!!!

Martinho Shipment Pt. 2/3

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You thought the Perisphaerus were all I got this week? Nope, my friend also sent me three other species of roach that are new to US Blatticulture! 😁 Let's start with these little beauties, Eucorydia linglong!

Eucorydia is a cute little genus of Corydiids, that are similar in care to, but a bit more finicky than the commonly cultured Therea and Ergaula. Eucorydia adults are usually quite colorful and metallic looking, though sadly they typically live far shorter than Therea or Ergaula adults, a month or two on average, especially if kept warm. Nymphs are fuzzy and look very similar to those of Therea and Ergaula in morphology, and similarly take around a year, maybe two at most to mature. 

Eucorydia linglong adults have green pronotums and tegmina, with a blue tint to them. The tegmina are covered in white hairs, arranged in an ornate pattern, and their abdomens have a stripe of red running across, which is sometimes visible through the tegmina. It's a very attractive species, one we can hopefully establish in US Blatticulture! 🤞

The super annoying thing with Eucorydia is the fact that the males live so short as adults, yet can mature a month or two ahead of females the same age, which can lead to your males maturing and dying before females even get a chance to mate... It's this aspect which makes them difficult to culture IMO, that and the fact that northern strains of some Eucorydia seem to require winter diapauses... And E.linglong appears to be one of those species based on their locality. So I'll have to keep them cool during the Fall and Winter, though considering they burrow to escape the brunt of the cold during the winter, I'll only need to cool them to the low to mid 60s F° most likely... Then bump them back up to 75-85F° during the spring.

I've got my group of 4 nymphs (two females, two males) set up in a well ventilated container with a horizontal humidity gradient, 50/50, and have them on a substrate of coconut fiber, with dead leaf litter on top. I'll be feeding them chick feed, artificial pollen and fruits. 

Here are some pictures of nymphs:

Female pre-sub nymph

Male subadult nymph

I can't wait until they start to mature, (hopefully with both sexes in sync), would love to breed this beautiful species myself and help get them established in captivity, I don't know of many people outside of Asia working with this particular Eucorydia species. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated on how mine do! 

Well, that's gonna do it for today, but stay tuned, because we still have one more species to discuss in the next post! I hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all soon! 😉