The Frass Hits the Fan

Well, things are looking bleak for my Lanxoblatta rudis. Found three dead nymphs the other day, and another one that had been half eaten. 😩 I keep finding them on the enclosure walls, and I saw a couple nymphs even crawling across the substrate... Really don't know how many I'll have left by the time I get some suitable hides for them, can't believe how picky they are being compared to the adults...

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My Paranauphoeta discoidalis colony is still suffering, and adults are dying left and right. I mentioned in the last post that I thought it could be a genetic problem, (I've really just been grasping at straws here, trying to figure out what's going on), however I sent a group of nymphs to Tyler Hedlund a couple months ago in a trade, and they have been maturing without ANY wing deformities, which leads me to believe genetics aren't at fault...

Tyler has been keeping his pretty similar to mine, however he seems to be keeping them a bit dryer, and he is using egg carton pieces instead of bark for hides. This made me remember that I actually kept the first generation or two of my Paranauphoeta discoidalis in an enclosure with just paper towel rolls and dead leaves for hides! I only added bark once their numbers started getting higher and they had chewed through the paper towel rolls, that's kinda when things started going downhill.

The bark I've given them is pretty flat, not curved at all, and I have layered them horizontally on top of each other. This may be contributing to the high deformity rates, some species need more vertical hides or spacious areas to inflate their wings properly after molting. The adults also may like more curved areas to hide in, rather than in between flat pieces of bark, and not having any suitable resting areas could be causing my adults to die off early and refuse to give birth.

This is all just speculation, but heck, I'll try anything to save this colony! So, I've replaced pretty much all of their bark hides with paper towel rolls and egg carton pieces, as well as some leaf litter. I did leave a couple small pieces of partially buried bark in the enclosure for the nymphs though, as they really like hiding under those. Will let you all know how this goes!

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Lastly, the last of my good looking Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" oothecae has molded over, so I've officially failed at breeding these. 😢 I've got two adult males left and one female, who is looking much more haggard than the males.

I took a few pictures of one of the males recently, so these are probably the last pictures you'll see of them on this blog, until I can get more in the summer:

Really bummed that I couldn't breed this species on the first try, hopefully I'll be able to get more from a friend in the Summer and try again.

Well, that's going to do it for today, thanks for reading everyone, will see you all next post!