Tiger Hisser Weirdness

Well, this is odd... The "subadult" female Princisia vanwaerebeki "Tiger" that Brandon Maines sent me just gave birth to a tiny litter of nymphs. 😅 I wasn't keeping them that warm because I didn't think the female was mature yet, and needed to focus more on heating my other gravid Blaberids... But apparently this small female is not a nymph, but rather a minor adult, which have been popping up more in Brandon's colony lately, as his culture is getting a little crowded with how much they've been breeding for him, (these tigers can be quite prolific if set up just right, though have more narrow husbandry preferences than some other hissers). 

The only reason why I consider any of this particularly weird is because her abdominal coloration is a bit darker and browner than you normally see in pure adult female P.vanwaerebeki "Tiger"... And indeed, Brandon insists most of his adults are quite bright in comparison, hence why he thought this one was a nymph, (well, that and the size of course). So of course, I instantly became concerned about hybridization, and thus I did some lineage tracing for this stock, which I thought I'd share with you.

The lineage tracing is as follows:

I got my trio of tigers from Brandon Maines. Brandon's colony was started with individuals from Cody Will and Joshua Campos. Cody says he got his tigers from Kyle Kandillian of Roachcrossing, (who has always had pure tigers as far as I'm aware). Joshua says he got his from fellow roach breeder Spencer Thornton. Spencer Thornton says he got his from Kyle as well. So they all originate from Kyle's culture, the real question is, did anyone after Kyle in that line contaminate their stock? Well, every one of those keepers seems pretty responsible about preventing hybrids, and most, if not all of them use gasket totes for their hissers, so I kinda doubt they were contaminated along the way.

However, just in case, I'll be closely monitoring this stock to see what the offspring will look like when mature... But for now it seems like this female just has abnormally dark abdominal base coloration, and the stock is still likely pure. 

Anyways, here are a couple pictures of the babies, and the adult female in question:

L1 nymph

Abnormally dark adult female

I think I only got around 5 babies in this litter, but that's to be expected seeing as she didn't even look plump or gravid at all on arrival, and I've been keeping her rather cool on top of that... I'm surprised she gave birth at all TBH! 😂 

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