Sunday, January 8, 2023

Magnificent Emeralds, Pseudoglomeris magnifica!

I've FINALLY got my hands on a small breeding group of Pseudoglomeris magnifica "Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam", the OG hobby Magnificent Emerald Cockroach! 😁 So many different strains and localities in culture now, including various similar strains from Vietnam, and some different colored, diapause-needing Chinese strains as well. This species can vary a lot in coloration and also adult size depending on the locality, which is why knowing and keeping track of exactly what strain of magnifica you have is so important. The "Cuc Phuong" strain is perhaps the prettiest green strain of magnifica currently in the hobby, often throwing out individuals with a nice blue iridescent sheen over their base coloration of metallic green. This Vietnamese locality requires no diapause and also gets to a much larger size than most of the Chinese strains.

Thanks to my pal Alberto Marquez (AKA Junior) for trading me two large female nymphs, for a pre-sub/subadult male I already had that another buddy of mine sent me months prior. 😁 He also threw in an adult male of his own, just to be safe! Now I have all Pseuglomeris in the US hobby besides tarsalis (which I failed with mainly because I gave them the wrong type of hides). But hey, I have all the metallic ones in the US at least. 😂

I've got my trio of nymphs and adult male in a very well ventilated container with a thin layer of coconut fiber as the substrate, keeping one third humid, the rest dry. They have vertically slanted cottonwood bark for hides, and I'm feeding them dog food, pollen, and fruits. I'm keeping them at around 75-85F°.

Here are some pictures of these precious living emeralds:

Pre-sub/Sub male















Mature male


Subadult female








So pretty! 😍 Can't wait to see adult females of these beauties in person, and hopefully breed them successfully! 🤞😁 

While I'm on the subject of Pseuglomeris BTW, both my P.aerea and P.magnifica "Kunming, Yunnan, China" are doing great while in their Winter diapause, and the latter have actually been steadily growing and molting even in diapause. Most are now subadults and one of the females may even be mature, so should definitely get some breeding action right out of the gate once I break their diapause in a little over a month. 😄

Junior also threw in a group of Drymaplaneta semivittata nymphs for me, since my colony crashed due to pesticide exposure months ago. This is much appreciated, and very generous of Junior, hopefully I can get another colony established in no time! 🤞 😁

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! 😉

3 comments:

  1. Hi! I am a new emerald roach owner too. Do they need humidity all the time or only sometimes spraying? I have one green spot in their enclosure which i spray with water every day. Should the substrate be humid too? Or the only important thing is to have a humid spot somewhere? THX for the answer!

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    1. Hi,

      Yes they should definitely have a humid spot available, I keep a third of my enclosure humid (substrate included), the rest dry. You can see my full caresheet for this species here:

      https://www.invertebratedude.com/p/pseudoglomeris-magnifica-magnificent.html?m=1

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