First off, my Myrmecoblatta wheeleri female finally kicked the bucket, I think... Noticed she was absent from the Macropanesthia enclosure on 6/17, so all in all she lived almost 8 months as an adult, impressive for such a small roach species, especially that I wasn't keeping optimally... Hope to try again with that species one day, but for now it's clear my attempt to breed Myrmecoblatta wheeleri has been a complete disaster.
Secondly, I unfortunately am down to a single female Ceronopus concolor, and a single, probably male Trogloderus sp....
The C.concolor just kept dying over the winter, I don't think they are particularly long lived, either that or I just kept them horribly, though I don't know what I did wrong if so.
Whereas for the Trogloderus, I'm pretty sure I accidentally murdered them... We had a bit of a heat wave recently, and I didn't expect my dryer enclosures to dry out completely as fast as they did during said heat wave, the lack of moisture and high heat seemed to kill 3 of my 4 Trogloderus, and one of my CB Cryptoglossa muricata adults too... Sad about the latter, but the biggest hit for me was the Trogloderus, as even though I had not been successful in getting any offspring from them thus far, my hopes of breeding them were completely dashed with that blunder of mine.
Pretty bummed that I made such a bad error, but stuff like this happens sometimes I guess, I'm certainly being more careful not to let any of my other enclosures completely dry out like that again.
My Hyporhicnoda sp. "reflexa" females have all passed away, sadly no offspring from any of them. In fact, absolutely none of them had ooths in them upon dying, and I never saw them abort ooths either, so I half wonder if they are semelparous and only produce one internal ootheca before dying. If so, they might have aborted their ooths long before I got them, and so I never had a chance at breeding them... It's the best theory I can come up with ATM, definitely a bummer for sure though.
My last Hemithyrsocera vittata nymph matured a month or so ago, and it was a male... So I decided to try and put him to use, and put a subadult female H.palliata in with him, to see if these two species can hybridize, and what the babies would look like if so. I personally really doubt they can hybridize on account of how different the hatchlings (and even larger nymphs) of the two species are in terms of morphology, but why not put it to the test? 🙃
Well, a few days ago I found the male dead, partially eaten, and the H.palliata female was now mature. I'm hoping the male lasted long enough to at least possibly mate with the female, maybe he tried and afterwards kicked the bucket after using up that energy? Or perhaps the adults of these two species don't get along and will kill each other if housed together, (which might make sense considering their overlapping natural ranges, which is yet another reason I doubt they can actually hybridize). Basically, due to my uncertainty here, I won't be able to disprove that the two can hybridize, but I may be able to prove they can, if I find babies in the enclosure after a month or so...
Well, a few days ago I found the male dead, partially eaten, and the H.palliata female was now mature. I'm hoping the male lasted long enough to at least possibly mate with the female, maybe he tried and afterwards kicked the bucket after using up that energy? Or perhaps the adults of these two species don't get along and will kill each other if housed together, (which might make sense considering their overlapping natural ranges, which is yet another reason I doubt they can actually hybridize). Basically, due to my uncertainty here, I won't be able to disprove that the two can hybridize, but I may be able to prove they can, if I find babies in the enclosure after a month or so...
I'll keep you all updated on the little project, but I highly suspect the female will pass away and no babies will ever be created. If I DO get hybrid babies though, rest assured I won't be selling them and will use this info to prevent such hybrids being created by other people who just want to house these two species together for fun.
Lastly, I have failed yet again at breeding Deropeltis... my sp. "Masai Mara" ooths all ended up being rotted inside, and I really don't know why. 😭 I kept them warm, kept them semi-humid (gave the adults a moisture gradient), and well ventilated, still I failed. Don't think these are getting established in the US, not from this batch at least, which really sucks. I pretty much give up on this genus, I evidently can't breed Deropeltis to save my life, which is a shame considering they are some of my all time favorite Blattids. 😔
Anyways, that's gonna do it for this bummer post, hope you found it informative at least, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time.
Ouch, commiserations.
ReplyDeleteThanks, stuff like this just comes with the territory, sucks but you can't have the highs without some lows. I try to make sure I share it all on my blog, so at the very least others may learn from my mistakes when possible.
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