Hopefully I'll soon see babies in the enclosure, I'm so glad to finally be breeding this species after wanting them for years! :)
One of my Balta notulata matured today, which is great, really hope some of the others will follow soon!
Here are some pictures I took of it: (The eyes look red cause of the flash, they are actually black):
I love the ornate markings on the pronotum, can't wait until they start breeding!
My Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" female matured a little while ago, and I realized I have not taken any pictures of her yet, which is crazy considering how nice looking she is! She's got red pronotum markings, which I love, the red pronotum color form of this species is my favorite, I wonder if it could be isolated or if it's just random?
Anway, here are some pictures of her:
Hopefully it'll only be a couple of months before she gives birth, this may be my favorite Blaberus species in the hobby!
My Dorylaea orini have been doing OK, the females seem to be getting old as the ootheca they have been producing the last couple of weeks are small and very weird looking. I'm still waiting on the good looking oothecae to hatch, it probably won't be long now.
Here are some pictures I took of them today:
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| And some pics of the oothecae |
Can't wait to see some hatchlings, this species is very beautiful!
The other day while I was doing maintenance in my Pycnoscelus surinamensis enclosure I came across something really rare and interesting, a mature male! This species, which reproduces exclusively by parthenogenesis, very rarely produces males, which are sterile and unable to mate with the females. Finding a male surinam roach is very rare, so I was very surprised to see this guy at the top of the substrate.
Here are some pictures of him:
As you can see, male surinam roaches are much more slender than the females, and have longer wings that cover the whole abdomen. I'm really glad I was able to photograph this guy, It'll probably be a long time until I see another one.
A couple of days ago my mom found a rather large female katydid, (Microcentrum rhombifolium), on the sidewalk, which she caught for me. :) I ended up letting her go since I'm not interested in keeping insects that feed on living plants, but I did take some pictures of her before I released her.
Here she is:
It was very cool seeing this amazing leaf mimic in person, and I'm glad I was able to photograph her. :)
Anyway, that's gonna be it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all next post!
I know that this is a really old post, but recently I've been getting hopped up (pardon pun) about Microcentrum rhombifolium, which I've apparently heard the calls of.
ReplyDeleteHow tame was your individual? Was it nervous and intolerant like a normal katydid? Did it allow itself to be gently picked up like a house pet?
(Microcentrum is a generalist herbivore, and will probably do well on lettuce, carrots, pesticide-free cuttings, and the occasional apple or fishflake; this is based on info by bugguide editor Metrioptera in the forum and a few other people who have kept it captive. This means it should be just as easy to feed as a darkling.)
No problem, it serves as a nice reminder actually, I forgot I had the pleasure of seeing one of these up close until just now. :)
DeleteMine was pretty tame, jumped a few times and had a weird obsession with trying to jump/climb onto me. But other than that it was pretty easy to handle, could have been because it was the time of year they start dying off though, this guy was on a sidewalk after all, not in the trees like normal...
Good to know, don't think I'll ever keep any though, I just don't have the interest. Not to mention my mom would likely be driven crazy by the mating calls at night lol! (We all share the same room).