Hemithyrsocera vittata Adult!!!

I've now got an adult female Hemithyrsocera vittata! 😁 And it looks like I've got a subadult male about to molt soon, so I'll shortly have a sexed adult pair, WOOHOO!!! 😃 

I was getting a little worried, to me it looked like the growth rates were quite staggered, and ventrally the nymphs all looked like females. But it turns out males are noticeably smaller than females and thus mature at a smaller size, so other than one small nymph that's far behind all the others in development, they seem to be growing at even rates. And for some reason, their ventral segments, which are jet black, are all bordered in white lines EXCEPT for the last couple segments on the male nymphs... Which makes it look like they've got one big last ventral segment, like the females. Upon closer examination under a bright light, you can see the two small last ventral segments of the male nymphs, but at a glance they just look like smaller female nymphs, so I was worried initially that I only had females.

Thankfully that's not the case though, and now that I have a confirmed pair, the breeding and reintroduction of this species into US Blatticulture shall soon commence, once that male matures! 😁

Here are some pictures of my adult female:

Such a stunning species! 😍 And bigger than I thought they'd be, this female is about as big, and perhaps even slightly bulkier than the Pseudomops septentrionalis I used to keep. Almost twice as big as my Hemithyrsocera palliata adults I'd say, (speaking of which, been finding hatchlings in my palliata container, woo-hoo!).

In addition to my adult female and subadult male, I have two pre-subs that also look like a pair to me, and that one small nymph that doesn't seem to want to grow any more. Unfortunately it seems I lost around three nymphs shortly after acquiring them, I know one mismolted, don't know what happened to the others though, must have just been too weak from the trip over here... But it seems I lucked out with what survived, hopefully I can get these beauties established in US Blatticulture! 🤞😃

Well, that's gonna do it for today, I hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all in the next post! 😉