Martinho Shipment Pt. 3/3
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Two last species to cover in this series about this latest package of roaches I've received, let's start off with my new Margattea! 😁
I got three oothecae of Margattea sp. "Macao". This species is honestly rather similar to Latiblattella rehni physically, at least that's what they remind me of. You can see pictures of this species in Martinho's thought provoking post here. This species isn't in culture anywhere outside of Asia I believe, so I'm happy to get the chance to establish these in the US hobby! Even though they may not be the prettiest or most in demand roach species in the hobby, they are worth culturing to me! 😉
I've kept my ooths set up in a moderately ventilated deli cup with a thin layer of moist coconut fiber as the substrate, and have them at around 80F°. Sadly two of the ooths were dead on arrival, but the third one looked OK. After only a few days, one of the oothecae hatched! 😁 The offspring look oddly Blattella like at this stage, looking forward to watching them grow up!
Here are some pics of the oothecae and the resulting nymphs:
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| Oothecae |
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| First instar nymph |
So glad these hatched out for me, there appear to be a dozen, maybe twenty nymphs in the deli cup ATM. So hopefully I'll be able to establish these new Margattea sp. "Macao" in the US hobby! 😁
Last but not least, we've got a species that would have been an amazing addition to US Blatticulture... Rhabdoblatta imperatrix! These things dwarf any other Epilamprinae species that's made it to the US so far, being about the length of Blaberus craniifer. They aren't quite as big as the beautiful Rhabdoblatta goliath that have been cultured in Malaysia previously, but some might argue these are more pretty (I personally love both equally, but I digress).
Sadly, while Martinho did send me five nymphs, only one made it here alive, their vial was the only one that was ventilated, and they sadly dried out in transit. So I will not be able to breed or establish this species in the US, not until I get more nymphs of this species in the future. Hopefully I can get some more from Martinho next year though, we shall see! 🙂
This species has basically been the holy grail of Asian Epilamprinae for us US keepers for years, but despite entering the Asian and even European roach hobbies a few times, us Americans never got any before. They seem to be identical to R.rustica in terms of care and hardiness... Which is probably the exact reason we never got them before lol! Starting cultures of Rhabdoblatta is easy, but maintaining those cultures long term? That's the tricky part. I did OK with R.rustica when I had them, got them through every crash they had before getting tired of the crash and boom cycle lol. In the future when I actually attempt to breed this species, I'll have to be sure to keep their enclosure clean, consistently humid, and make sure the colony has food at all times.
I've tossed the last surviving nymph into my Dorylaea orini bin, which is kept warm and very humid, I added some leaf litter just in case it's necessary for this species of Rhabdoblatta. I expect to see a large adult R.imperatrix here in the next few months. 😅
Here are some pics of my lone nymph:
Such long antenna for an Epilamprid, really looking forward to seeing this little one mature. Hopefully next year I'll be able to get some more nymphs and actually get a shot at breeding this species. 😄
I want to give a HUGE thanks to Martinho for this lovely package of roaches, I am so grateful to have so many nice new additions to my collection and to the US hobby as a whole, hopefully they will all do well for me and I can establish them here for years to come! 😃
That's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading everyone, hope you enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
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