I decided to snap some pictures of one of my major adult males the other day, and pulled out a minor male for comparison. A lot of people don't realize just how much of a disparity there can be between the sizes of adults in Gromphadorhini, males especially. I feel like a lot of people also underestimate how large this species can get in general, major male A.insignis are nothing to laugh at, and comparable in mass to large male G.portentosa. 😍 Add to that some striking red and black patterning, and a very unique morphology, and you got yourself one of the coolest hissers in culture IMO.
Anyways, here are those pics:
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| Minor adult male VS major adult male |
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| Minor adult male pronotum |
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| Major adult male |
In case you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of the males' pronotum morphology, especially on major males. Not only do they have a very noticeable anterior pronotum notch that makes that of Princisia look unremarkable, but large males have little spikes at the anterior tips of the notch as well. So cool! 😁
So, the coloration in my Princisia vanwaerebeki "Big/Black" culture has been a bit variable since I hot them, namely a decent amount of adults have popped up that are completely black, with no orange margins on their abdominal segments, and often no red spots on their thoracic pads either. However the morphology remains consistent with Princisia, thus this hasn't changed my mind on them being a pure stock.
Interestingly though, over time, probably due to most of my majors having more striking coloration, the genetics in my colony are shifting towards more and more colorful individuals. I've been seeing less and less black adults popping up, and have decided to isolate some of the few remaining ones to try and isolate a true breeding, completely black line of P.vanwaerebeki. This would be the ONLY pure, completely black hisser line in the US hobby if I'm successful, since all so called "Black Tigers" in the hobby are just mutts.
Here are some pictures of one of the pairs I've isolated:
Here's hoping I'm successful in my isolation endeavors! 🤞
Well, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
Good luck with this mate 👍🏻
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