Friday, April 15, 2016

Entomophagus Fungus Woes...

I have been experiencing a lot of die offs in certain species due to an Entomophagus fungus, particularly in my Cariblatta lutea, Parcoblatta bolliana and Parcoblatta unknown fulvescens like caudelli cultures.

You guys already know what happened to my P. unknown fulvescens like caudelli, but my Cariblatta lutea and Parcoblatta bolliana colonies have been suffering as well. Almost all of my Cariblatta lutea have died off, all I have left are two adult males and one adult female. I have removed them from their old cage and have moved them into a smaller container.

As for my Parcoblatta bolliana, all I have left is one adult female. Luckily she has been mated, so hopefully she will lay some ootheca and keep the population going. I have her in a small deli cup for now.

They were wild caught so they must have been infected by the fungus when I first got them. They have been slowly dying off for a while now, though I did not know why. Lately it has been happening at an alarming rate, and I did not realize what was going on until it was too late. I really hope both species pull through, I think I have a decent chance with the P.bolliana but the Cariblatta are already hard to breed and I fear I may lose them.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you guys know what's going on. I will be acquiring some new roaches soon, so stay tuned, I'll see you all next post! :)

4 comments:

  1. Sorry for you're losses, I hope you're remaining few roaches for those species can reproduce for you. Hope you don't have too many more problems with this fungus in the future.

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  2. Thanks, unfortunately my last P.bolliana female died today. :( My C.lutea look better though, I still have hope for them.

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  3. Hello Invertebrate Dude! This is happy1892 from roachforum. I haven't been in the roach hobby for a while now. I see you had trouble with roach die offs from fungus. Panchlora nivea and Chorisoneura texensis I have had in the past were especially sensitive to die offs, so I kept them in the 32oz deli containers with fabric lids that are commonly used for fruit fly cultures or mantises. It worked very well for me, but you had to mist every now and then to keep them humid because of the ventilation.

    Off topic, but I thought you might be able to help me with an identification of a beetle so that I could guess whether these bees (maybe spanish black bee) in the same picture are from North America or not.
    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9f/10/de/9f10de00462f5ba6ab28352a8d99db88.jpg
    I got this picture from pinterest:
    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/317574211199407816/

    I was writing on this forum about Spanish black bees and German black bees:
    https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?354735-German-Black-bees-in-the-Southeastern-US-actually-Apis-mellifera-iberiensis/page3

    -Nathaniel Long IV

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    Replies
    1. Hello there, happy to hear from you, hope you are doing well! :D

      Yeah I lost a few of those species you sent me to fungal issues, I was later able to get most of them again from Alan Jeon though, and was able to breed them successfully. :) So it all worked out, and only a minority of the species ever had those issues.

      The beetle looks like some sort of scarab, which are unfortunately not my area of expertise, I can tell you it's definitely in the Cetoniinae though, and that it's rather similar to some Euphoria species... I unfortunately can't get any more precise than that, sorry!

      Nice hearing from you!
      -Tristan

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