Roach Updates with Phone Pics!

My Polyphaga plancyi are doing pretty well, this latest generation had a bunch of adults crop up over the Summer, which have been hard at work laying ooths. There's still half a dozen female nymphs that have drastically slowed down in growth for some reason, but all the males have already matured, as well as half a dozen or so females.

I really, really hope that this generation, I can get more than a SINGLE ooth hatch... which is all I've gotten from the last two generations. 😫 I honestly still don't know exactly what these ooths want for successful incubation, seems like a diapause doesn't help, dry/wet cycles don't work (and the ooths rot pretty quickly if kept moist for extended periods of time). I'm hoping consistently pretty dry conditions, and a long period of time will be the actual key to incubating the ooths...

Adult female

Oothecae

Nymph

Definitely the prettiest of the Polyphaga IME, I dream of the day we have their care fully figured out, and I can make them available to hobbyists.

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My Elliptorhina davidi had been doing OK, and I've managed to get to a second generation of adults, however they were not really thriving in their old setup. I have attributed this to a lack of adequate ventilation, so I recently revamped their enclosure and switched them over to micromesh ventilation, and lots of it! I'll be keeping them drier as well, and that plus the extra heat they get from a heat cable underneath their enclosure (which boosts them into the 90F° range) should hopefully cause them to start thriving!

These are definitely my favorite among the Elliptorhina, and so I really hope I can get them exploding for me soon!

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I know I just posted about them, but I found a particularly large Armadillo officinalis in my colony that I wanted to get some macro phone pics with.

I think of all the conglobating genera, Armadillo might be my favorite, just because of how beefy they are, and their unique exoskeleton textures.

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My Princisia vanwaerebeki "Big/Black" colony has given me a wealth of different color forms, and this is one I see cropping up in some of the males lately (though I haven't seen any females with a similar pattern).

Very dark coloration, with bright spots on the thoracic pads and minimal (but present) abdominal margins. If there were females that popped up looking like this, I might be tempted to line breed for this coloration, but alas that's not the case. But figured I'd snap a couple pics of this male for my own records.

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So the Polyphaga obscura have been pumping out oothecae, which is great, hopefully those will start hatching in like 6 months or so. 😄 I noticed they looked significantly different from P.saussurei ooths, so I decided to get some comparison photos to show the differences.

P.obscura (Top) VS P.saussurei (Bottom)

P.obscura

P.saussurei

As you can see the obscura are more straight and rigid in shape, VS the more curved saussurei ooths. The teeth going along the hatching seam of obscura ooths are wider and more heavily curved than those of saussurei. And while I didn't accurately capture this in these photos, the oothecae of obscura are wider and more rotund, whereas saussurei ooths are pretty flat. Overall the oothecae are pretty different between these two species, even though adults at a glance are quite similar.

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Kyle sent me some Lamproblatta sp. "Uvita, Costa Rica", these are unique roaches in their own family (Lamproblattidae), though they look very similar to Blattids at a glance.

I have them set up in a moderately ventilated 1 gallon container with a thin layer of coconut fiber substrate topped in coconut coir chunks, a little sawdust, and cardboard roll hides. I'm keeping them humid, and at around 75-80F°. I'm feeding them dog food and fruits as the staple diet (and will be adding leaf litter to their enclosure soon as well).

Small nymph

I need to get around to getting some better pics of one of the larger nymphs... this is all I got for now. 😆 It seems like they are very slow growing, and I got a small group of nymphs that vary wildly in age, so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that at least ONE pair matures at around the same time so I can get them breeding... 😅

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Last but not least, my Princisia vanwaerebeki "Black & White" are doing alright, and I even found a small litter of nymphs in their enclosure recently. There are plenty of super gravid looking females, but they just don't seem to want to explode in numbers for me, still not sure what they want from me...

Adult females

Hopefully they can start popping out broods less sporadically so I can start making them available and use them in some hybrid projects. At least they're still growing in numbers, just very slowly...

Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉 

Cryptocercus, Hissers & More!

I just received a group of Cryptocercus clevelandi, from near the Oregon Caves National Monument Area, OR (they were not collected from the Monument AFAIK, that's just the nearest landmark around where they were collected from that I can use as a locality info marker). These are the only Cryptocercus species from the West Coast, and are supposedly larger than any of the East Coast spp., however the ones I recieved are about the same size as C.garciai (though these were not only captive reared, but the large clevelandi individuals I have may only be subadults; it's hard to tell).

This time for Cryptocercus I'm not messing around with man-made substrates for them, I'm just using straight, crushed brown rot wood, since this seems to be all they eat in the wild. I've got them in a well ventilated 5 gallon bin filled to the brim with said wood, which I'm keeping moist. I highly suspect a cool period during the winter is required for inducing reproduction in this genus, and the native habitat of this species certainly gets quite cold during the winter (about as cold as it gets here in Idaho), so I have their bin in my garage and will keep it there until February.

Here's hoping they will not only survive long term for me, but will breed as well, that'd be fantastic!

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My Gromphadorhini sp. "Black" (ex. "Black Tigers") are doing very well, and threw out several very large major males this generation! They are really most reminiscent of G.portentosa in terms of morphology, but still look different than any of the other pure portentosa stocks in culture IMO...

In interesting news regarding this strain, one keeper, Derek Pitts, who's had their colony for years, and never added other bloodlines to their culture, is having "normal", brown/orange individuals pop up in their culture... so they're reverting for him back to their wild type coloration. This is not unheard of as far as morphs go, and provides us with a valuable opportunity to see what these came from; evidently either an old pure line of G.portentosa, or very portentosa-like mutts.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes from these reverts... At the very least, definitely shows why we shouldn't be calling these "Tigers" of any sort!

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My Porcellio expansus "Witch's Potion" are doing great, slowly but surely growing in numbers, and adjusting to a recent enclosure upgrade well! Unfortunately the same can not be said for my "White Skirt" line of expansus, those crashed completely after an enclosure upgrade, and I'm still not 100% sure why. But looks like I'll be having to find more of those soon...

At least I still got these beauties, really hope they explode in population this coming generation! 🤞 

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I have finally built up a nice population of Pseudoglomeris magnifica "Kunming, Yunnan, China", and now that they've hit an all time peak in numbers, I am going to attempt to break their diapause this Winter... 😅 Hopefully it goes smoothly, with the numbers I have I think I should be fine, and that should account for mild die offs/reduced reproduction that occurs this winter from the lack of diapause.

I just found a female carrying fresh babies this week, so so far, so good! 😄

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Lastly, my Agabiformius cf. lentus "Trastevere" are doing very well, and I got some decent pictures of a group of them recently, which I figured I'd share here.

Really love these little cuties, they're so dang chonky! 😊

Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉