Happy April Roach Updates!

Enough with the doom and gloom updates, here's a more positive one for y'all! 😃 I've got an adult pair of Parcoblatta americana, yay! 😁 Ooths should follow soon, and babies not too long after that, so it should be smooth sailing from here. 

Only thing that sucks is that two of the larger nymphs are subadult males, and the smaller ones females, so I've had to move the male nymphs to a colder enclosure so they won't mature and die off before the rest of the females do, since I'd like to maximize the amount of brood produced this generation as much as possible. 😅

Here are some pictures of the adult pair:

Adult female

Adult male

I'll keep you all posted on how these do, I'm pretty optimistic about their future ATM. 🙂

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More of my Gromphadorhina sp. "Unidentified" have matured recently, including the last of the male nymphs, so here are some pictures of all/both the new adult males:

Male #5

Male #6

Patterning seems pretty consistent, as does the pronotum structure, which is good. So far all the adult females just look like regular portentosa with slightly paler abdominal margins, which is evidently the normal look for the stock in it's current state... Still not sure about the purity of this stock, but so far they seem reasonably consistent at least.

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Now, backtracking a little bit back to the Parcoblatta americana... Remember that weird looking nymph collected? The only one found within rotten wood at the very start of the trail, by the parking lot adjacent to the Boise Botanical gardens? Well, it molted recently, and I can now definitely tell it's a Blattid, not an Ectobiid, as it's last tergite is cleft. 😅

Here are some pictures of it:

So, what exactly is it? My guess is Blatta orientalis, on account of the dark coloration, and the fact that I've never seen Periplaneta here and think it probably gets too cold for those to breed here, whereas Blatta orientalis can handle much colder temps. Interestingly, I don't think there are Bugguide or even INaturalist sightings of B.orientalis in Idaho, so at the very least I might be able to add a sighting for this species for the state of ID on those sites, guess I'll have to wait and see once this nymph matures!

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Lastly, my Hemithyrsocera palliata colony is really booming, and I though I'd share some pictures of a bunch of them feeding on an apple slice. 😄

I do have plenty of these available BTW, if anyone is interested, feel free to check out my For Sale page. 

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

Further Ammopelmatus Frustrations...

Man, I know Ammopelmatus haven't really been bred with much success in the past, but not having any knowledge of proper post breeding husbandry for females can really make a keeper wanna pull their hair out... I'm sad to report that my second mated A.pictus female also died prematurely, I assume due to being eggbound, so once again I had to cut the eggs she didn't lay out of her abdomen once she had passed. 😑

This time, the female at least laid 5 eggs herself before dying, which is a higher amount than the other female laid, (formerly I thought the previous, smaller female only laid 1 egg before dying, but I found a second egg in her old substrate recently, so that brings her total of laid eggs to 2). I'm quite disappointed that I couldn't get this larger female to lay eggs normally either, but at least the eggs still within her seem just as developed as the ones she laid, so I am again optimal that they'll all hatch. I got a total of 37 viable looking eggs from this female (surprisingly, there were more empty dud looking eggs inside this female than in my smaller female).

So, if this second female truly died from being eggbound like the last female did (which seems to be the case at first glance), then it would seem that after a successful mating, female Ammopelmatus should be fed VERY infrequently, if fed anything at all. Maybe one big meal right after mating, and that's it... 🤔

Either that, OR A.pictus have different care requirements than the SoCal Ammopelmatus I'm used to keeping, and are actually just a finicky species with very particular substrate and/or humidity requirements for oviposition... 🤷 Hard to tell, considering there is no real baseline for difficulty levels between different Ammopelmatus species, and this is only my second attempt at breeding this genus... That's another reason why I'd really like to get my hands on some more species soon, the more experience I get with a wide variety of Ammopelmatus species, the better chance I'll have at cracking the code to creating a repeatable breeding methodology. 

Also, unfortunately both my adult males have passed away now, I honestly assume due to old age, Ammopelmatus males don't live terribly long as adults and these were WC as adults, so who knows how old they were. It's possible shipping them as adults may also have contributed to a shorter lifespan, I don't like shipping adults of most inverts for that reason, but in this case it was necessary to get them into culture. Sadly, this means my subadult female will go unmated, which is unfortunate, but I'll at least get a better idea of how long this species typically lives as adults, since I'll have reared her to adulthood myself and can fully document her adult lifespan. 

Here are some pictures of my subadult female, never showed her off after she molted to a subadult in my care:

As you can see she's got some grain mites attached to her legs and around her eyes, a little unsightly, but nothing serious, I've inoculated her enclosure with predatory mites which will hopefully eliminate the problem. 

In any case, my main hope is that all these eggs will hatch, in total I have 78 viable looking eggs, so if I can hatch the majority out, this will still be a huge win for the fledgling Jerusalem cricket hobby! 🤞😅 I'll have plenty of individuals to test different methodologies on myself, and may be able to send some off to other interested parties as well. I honestly suspect getting the eggs to hatch will be the easy part, the only hurdles I see going forward will be rearing the hatchlings, (something no one seems to have done before on account of a lack of captive hatches, so IDK how difficult it will be), and breeding the adults again in the future; hopefully I can figure out how to prevent the females getting eggbound and/or how to induce proper oviposition. I almost wonder if female Ammopelmatus truly ARE supposed to oviposit all their eggs at once in a little chamber like the old (but mostly outdated) literature says, because all the viable eggs inside these females were at the same stage of development, which I feel is unusual for eggs laid only once a day or so... 🤔 But everyone who's kept them in captivity and has gotten eggs from their females always reports them laying eggs singly throughout the substrate, so IDK.

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

Stuff I Sent to Brandon...

Just a short little update, I did just send some species in the collection to my buddy Brandon Maines of Magnificent Beasts, so I figured I'd let you all know why they're no longer on my cultured species list. 😅

First off, I sent him my last Pseudoglomeris cf. magnifica "Gold" female. I never posted about it, but actually completely cured mine of their "entomophagous" Trichoderma, but sadly as I suspected, the process took quite the toll on the roaches, and the only survivors were four adult females, three of which were pretty dang old and died a month or two after being cured. 😟 The one I sent Brandon appears to be a bit younger, but definitely unmated as well... Brandon has some females of this species himself, but no longer has any males sadly, and while some of his females should have been mated, they've not given birth for him for many months now... So that species may be functionally extinct in the US right now. In any case, I felt it made sense for my last female to go to him, in case he miraculously can source a male or something, just feels right for the remaining individuals of that species in the US to all be in the same place. 

Secondly, I FINALLY sent him the Reticulitermes cf. hesperus "Kuna, ID" I collected for him last Summer, which have been surviving in my care OK, just not really breeding, at least I don't think so, they are very secretive and didn't seem to be growing in numbers... In any case that was a long time coming, and Brandon's great at breeding termites, so they should take off in his care now. 😄

Thirdly, I sent him my lone Rhyparobia maderae nymph that was stowaway in my Gromphadorhina sp. "Unidentified" culture, which ended up being a female. That species is very rare in the US ATM, and Brandon has one pretty old female that should be mated and looks super gravid but refuses to give birth, and a younger adult male... So since my female nymph was a subadult, seemed like a good idea to send it his way so he can get it mated and hopefully get a colony of that species established quickly. 😅

I also sent him my entire Lepisma saccharina (common silverfish) colony, because I just can't seem to get them to breed... EVERY one of the 6 WC individuals I collected is still alive, along with a single, very slow growing nymph from their round of breeding last year... But that's it, there's basically been no more colony growth, can't seem to get tiny hatchlings to survive for me, and they haven't actually bred in months... So hopefully they'll do better for him, I just couldn't get them to take off for me. He breeds firebrats quite successfully, so he at least has good experience with a close relative of theirs, which will hopefully carry over to these Lepisma. 😂 

I sent him some other stuff too, but just starter cultures of species that I'm still keeping and breeding myself. 😄 Just wanted to explain what happened to all those species and why I no longer have them. Guess I'll finish by wishing Brandon good luck, hopefully he can get cultures of all those species established one way or another! 🤞😃

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

The Last Month's Losses...

Well, it's that time again unfortunately, gotta post about the losses in my collection and some misc sad updates as well. 😟 But you know I gotta do it, so let's dive right in...

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Let's start off with one of the two roach species I re-entered the hobby with, Gyna capucina. My colony has unfortunately basically been in a long, downward spiral since I got them, due to a series of unfortunate mistakes on my part... First I let their Oribatid mite population get out of hand, then I accidentally starved them, and on top of it all, it appears I never really kept them warm enough for adequate reproduction. Despite my best efforts, with my current heating situation (a single heat cable) I could only heat them to 78F°, maybe 80F°, but it seems like they require temperatures closer to 88F° or higher for consistent reproduction.

So, I sent my remaining 3-4 adult females (only one of which probably still has an ootheca left in her), plus the 4-5 mixed nymphs I had left in my possession to Kyle Kandillian, who has a small starter colony ATM that he got from Ty Randall. They wouldn't have been of any use to anyone who didn't already have a culture of that species, so hopefully they help boost Kyle's small colony, and he can get his G.capucina thriving for him. Figured it was better than letting them die out on me, at least the remaining individuals of my broken colony can possibly help further the spread of this species the US hobby. Once I can get a heat lamp or space heater or something that would let me better heat an enclosure to 88-90F° or higher, I will get another colony of this species and hopefully do a lot better with them. 😅 But yeah, I no longer have pink roaches, so that's a bummer.

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Unfortunately, all four of the Hemithyrsocera vittata ooths my females produced before dying prematurely were duds... 😭 So that species is functionally extinct from US culture, AGAIN. It's so frustrating and frankly embarrassing that I lost my females to what was probably a simple ventilation issue, my two males and the stunted nymph are still doing perfectly well in their better ventilated deli cup. I really hope I can get this species again and actually help establish them in the US hobby, but it looks like for now, this species is not getting established here.

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Now, this isn't exactly an unexpected update IMO, but still disappointing nonetheless, my last Myrmecoblatta wheeleri female has finally died, seemingly of old age... and I didn't get a SINGLE. DANG. OOTHECA. Brandon and Alan have both told me their ooths are pretty similar to those of Compsodes, and they they just affix them to objects much like Compsodes. After scouring the various enclosures I housed my Myrmecoblatta in, I can definitely confirm that, for whatever reason, they NEVER produced so much as one ootheca, and honestly I don't know why not. For the first couple months I had them (before microfauna found their way into their enclosure), they were doing great and should have laid at least a few oothecae, but I suspect they needed higher heat and ventilation levels...

This species is probably possible to breed in captivity repeatably, but they're super, super finicky, perhaps the most difficult US native to ever enter culture. Here are my notes on their husbandry:

•1 They definitely seem to be mold feeders based on my personal observations, as my adults always lost a lot of weight when no mold was available. They'll nibble on other foods but can't survive solely on them, or at least probably won't breed without fungi to feed on. Food molds like the stringy white molds and Trichoderma spp. seem to sustain them pretty well. Still, this is more difficult a food source to provide than a lot of people would think.

•2 They can't handle ANY, I repeat, ANY springtails or mites in their enclosures, springtails both stress them out with constant tactile contact, and most importantly, absolutely wipe out their main food source, molds. Mites bother them with tactile contact and probably food competition as well, but honestly, besides mites that have hyposus stages (which can be fatal to Myrmecoblatta), springtails are more troublesome because they prevent mold growth, which Myrmecoblatta need to feed. Fungus gnats are also intolerable.

•3 They didn't seem to like cardboard or even smooth bark for hides, only rotten wood and hides made of cork board were readily accepted. 

•4 Temps 75F° or above and/or lots of airflow are probably needed for oothecae production. 

Overall, they're really a lot of dang work for a pretty low payoff, they are TINY, don't seem to be a prolific species so can't be used as feeders, and they certainly can't be used as cleaner crews given how finicky they are. The only purpose M.wheeleri serve in culture is as a challenge for true Blatticulture enthusiasts... 😅 I hope to try them again one day, but I need to wait until I can heat a whole room for my bugs, so I can keep mine in a corner far, far away from the rest of my collection so as to prevent mites or springtails being introduced to their enclosure, but still keep them warm enough to breed.

Sorry I let you down Alan, guess I owe you my kidneys, PM me to let me know how to go about doing that...

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I was completely unable to get a SINGLE one of my Eleodes obscura sulcipennis larvae to mature successfully, a large portion of larvae died off in their later instars in the communal setups, and all survivors (including those reared individually in their own deli cups) died in the pupal or pre-pupal stages... In retrospect, I HIGHLY suspect a diapause was needed for the larvae, it would explain all the deaths, and it makes sense considering I never really see adult obscura emerging in any numbers until late Spring, so it seems likely that larvae overwinter, pupate in early Spring, and emerge as adults in late Spring or Summer.

So, that project was a complete and utter bust, but hey, at least I think I know what went wrong, and it's a pretty simple fix TBH, so I can try again one day, or just get a southern strain that doesn't require a diapause.

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Lastly, one of the earlier ooths my Deropeltis sp. "Masai Mara" female laid split open a little at the seam and was all rotten inside... I'm very very worried all my ooths might be duds or just died for some reason, I've moved them straight into my Bantua enclosure to give them some more heat, better airflow, while still keeping them a bit humid and misting them often. Apparently female Deropeltis spp. sometimes just lay dud ooths, and the majority of mine still look healthy, but then again Deropeltis seem to hate me, and I wouldn't be surprised if I failed breeding them yet again at this point, (though I sincerely don't know why these ones would have failed to hatch). So yeah, don't know if this is a total loss yet, but it's been over four months since the first ooths were laid, and I'm growing more and more concerned about the lack of hatchings...

Well, that's it for today's bummer post, y'all know I hate doing these, but I gotta, since failures can be just as informative as successes. I hope some of you found this post helpful, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see everyone next time! 😉

Ammopelmatus pictus EGGS!!!

Well, good news and bad news here... Good news, you read that title right, the smaller of my two female Ammopelmatus pictus laid an egg! 🙂 Bad news, after laying one egg she got eggbound and died, so I had to cut her open and extract the rest of the eggs by hand. 🙃 Evidently, unlike other Orthopterans I've kept but much like mantids, overfeeding gravid adult females can cause Ammopelmatus to become eggbound, which means they gain too much weight and can't extrude eggs anymore, which then kills them, (basically it's extreme constipation, but with eggs). The fact that this female was small didn't help things, hopefully my other, larger adult female doesn't get eggbound, I'll certainly be feeding her a lot less.

Thankfully I had been keeping a watchful eye on the small female after found the first egg, and noticed her dying the day afterwards... She died from being eggbound very quickly, and as soon as I saw she was definitely dead, I sprung into action, cut her open and extracted the eggs, all of which seemed to be fully developed thankfully. I then gently rinsed the eggs of any residual guts/hemolymph, and buried them in moist coconut fiber in moderately ventilated deli cups, along with the other egg. All in all I got 40 healthy looking eggs from this female, which I'll be keeping humid and at around 74F°.

Interestingly, not only were these eggs kinda huge in comparison to the female, but they're all yellow. Last time I tried breeding Ammopelmatus, the eggs my females produced were smaller, white, and likely infertile since they never hatched. However, I was looking into the species Sia ferox on Instagram (a close relative of Ammopelmatus, also in the subfamily Stenopelmatinae), and turns out some people overseas have bred S.ferox successfully. Interestingly, their fertile eggs are quite yellow, a color I usually associate with infertile Orthopteran eggs for some reason, but it seems that yellow coloration might actually be normal for fertile Stenopelmatinae eggs. So it would seem that this female had definitely been fertilized, and that I'm getting healthy Ammopelmatus eggs this go around, albeit, ones that I had to surgically remove from their mother after death... (coincidentally, one person had their Sia female get eggbound too, and cut the eggs out of her, which is where I got the idea to do it for this female).

Here are some pictures of the first egg, the one that was actually laid, the rest of them look identical to this one:

Weirdly, the eggs have a texture to them similar to that of a compound insect eye, and they're also surprisingly hard and sturdy to the touch, not squishy.

Perhaps worth noting is that the females were having some grain mite issues in their enclosures, so I replaced their substrate with freshly made coconut fiber, and literally the day after that substrate change is when I found this egg. 🤔 Hopefully my other female doesn't become eggbound and actually starts laying eggs normally here soon, and fingers crossed all these eggs prove easy to hatch! 🤞

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