Rochaina metae Adults!!!

I'm a couple weeks late in announcing this, but for the first time ever, Rochaina have been reared from ooth to adulthood in captivity! And it was done by yours truly, with R.metae! 😁 My first adult male emerged June 16th, with my first female emerging 5 days afterwards.

Interestingly, these have been growing much faster for me than R.bilunata... or at least, half my R.metae have been. This genus seems to be one that is quite territorial, not gregarious like most other roaches, and as such don't really benefit much from the allee effect. About half of the offspring from the first ooth I hatched of this species are still at L3-L4, while the other half are subadults or have matured already. Additionally, all but a couple of the nymphs that hatched out of my second ooth died off after being thrown in the same enclosure as the older nymphs. 

I wouldn't even consider the conditions they were previously in crowded at all, at least not for most roaches. But, after noticing this, and finding my first adults, I moved them to a 5 gallon bin, rather than the 1 gallon jar they were previously in. 

Now, when I moved them, I tried going with a lower ventilation enclosure, with only a third or so of the lid ventilated, to reduce the frequency with which I needed to mist them; this ended with my first pair of adults dying off prematurely, within days of being moved to the new bin. 🥲 I then changed their setup to one with a fully vented lid, and that has seemingly resolved the issue, all subsequent adults that have matured are still alive, and a couple of the females are starting to get rather plump! 😄 Of course, now I have to mist them a few times a week, but it's worth the effort for such stunning species. 

So two new husbandry needs learned, and hurdles overcome:

1. This genus is not at all gregarious, and needs lots of space and surface area for optimal growth. Larger life stages will bully smaller ones for space and food and can severely stunt or even kill them.
2. High ventilation levels are an absolute must for adults, but nymphs can seemingly tolerate lower ventilation, at least longer than adults can.

Valuable information learned, even if learned the hard way. 😅 But this is all part of the process of spearheading the development of a husbandry methodology for a species and genus no one's had success with before, it's all trial and error. Thankfully I've got plenty of individuals to work with still, and am getting very close to closing the loop completely with this amazing species!

Adult male (under ring light)

Adult male (under sunlight)

Adult female (under sunlight)

Male (right) & female (left)

L3/L4 nymph next to adult female; both hatched from the same ootheca

This is a much prettier species than I was expecting TBH, many pictures of them online (including most of mine) really wash their colors out, they are definitely best photographed/viewed under sunlight. 

They are surprisingly calm as adults, fairly slow moving and not very quick to fly, which is the opposite of how I thought they'd act. Their coloration must serve as some warning of bitter taste or mimicry of something else that tastes gross, for them to act so boldly. 

Anyways, that does it for this post! Thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉