Rochaina peruana (Former Paratropes) Oothecae!!!

This year has been a big win for Nyctiborinae in the hobby, not only has a Nyctibora species been discovered living in AZ (which I have two ooths of), but now, a former Paratropes sp., Rochaina peruana, has entered the US hobby in the form of three oothecae as well! 😊

Now, the reason I say former Paratropes species, is because thanks to a revision to the genus done last year by Julio Cesar Estrada-Álvarez, there is only ONE valid Paratropes species, P.lycoides, which honestly looks absolutely nothing like most of the other "Paratropes" species... However since it was the first of them to be described under that genus, the name Paratropes applies to lycoides, and lycoides only. Most of the other species in the genus were moved to a new genus, Rochaina, named after the taxonomist Dr. Isolda Rocha e Silva-Albuquerque (additionally, three species, P.otunensis, P.pensa, and P.seabrai were moved to Eunyctibora, and another, P.heydeniana, was actually a species of Phoraspis).

Anyways, compare this Paratropes lycoides:

©MNHN, ©SIBBR

To this, now Rochaina from Peru (almost certainly R.peruana):

©Geoff Gallice

Pretty clear the two should be different genera right? 😂

Anyways, now that that's all out of the way, let's dive into these, the newest Nyctiborinae addition to the US hobby, and perhaps one of my most wanted genera to work with, ever! My buddy Junior bought three ooths of Rochaina peruana, and generously let me keep one of them! 😁 So now we've got two members of the US roach hobby working on incubating ooths of this species, which is a lengthy process, takes around 6 months for them to incubate on average! 😅 Additionally, the oothecae of Nyctiborinae like very high ambient humidity, but don't like to touch wet substrate themselves, sorta similar to mantis oothecae. Not the easiest ooths to work with, however the difficulty and long incubation will be well worth the wait IMO, considering just how pretty Rochaina adults are. 😍

Two of the ooths have arrived, and will both go to Junior after the holiday shipping rush, the last ooth (which I'll get to keep) will hopefully arrive next month. In the meantime, I've placed the two oothecae in an incubation container, set up the same as the Nyctibora ooths, a well ventilated enclosure with a thin layer of moist coconut fiber at the bottom. There's a layer of crumpled up paper towels on top of that, which is what the ooths are sitting on. I'm aiming for high air humidity, and low surface humidity for them all, and will mist them lightly every few days. Keeping them at around 77-85F°. 

Here are some pictures of the two oothecae:

Very neat looking oothecae for sure, now let's hope in 6 months or so from now, at least one of us will get babies of this magnificent species hatching out. 😅🤞

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