Spring Cleaning

Well it's that time of year again, time to "clean up" my collection so to speak, and get rid of whatever species I no longer want, and those that have been compromised by pathogens.

I decided to release my Hymenorus sp., as well as my main Eleodes rileyi colony. I lost interest in breeding both, however I did manage to pupate a few larvae of the latter, which, when mature, I will keep separate in various other Tenebrionid/cockroach enclosures as pets, (much like I did with my Eleodes hispilabris).

My Edrotes ventricosus have all died off now, with no signs of any eggs being laid unfortunately. 😩 No sort of "Spring cleaning" with these, they just died out by themselves due to old age.

Unfortunately, I've frozen and disposed of my entire Embaphion cf. contusum colony, as they became infested with some sort of entomophagus fungus. All the larvae kept dying prematurely, and when they died they became very hard and crispy. When broken, you could see the insides were literally just fungus. If left in the substrate, their bodies became encrusted in white and green mold. The adults didn't seem to be as badly affected, but they were dwindling down for sure, so I just euthanized them all to prevent the fungus from spreading to other cultures.

My Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" haven't been doing all that well for me, with several of my females aborting oothecae and one giving birth to a extremely small litter. I attribute this to the relatively shallow enclosure I kept them in, apparently they do enjoy a lot more verticality than I thought they did, (my B.atropos were content to stay buried most of the time). So, I gave them away to a friend, hopefully they'll do much better in his care!

I also gave away my CB Pasimachus sp. "AZ" with the elytra deformity to the same friend. That breeding project had become an obvious dead end, and I didn't really have much of a desire to keep it any longer, so I figured I'd give it away to someone else who would get more enjoyment out of it than I would.

Lastly, I fed off the remainder of my Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" adults, while their defensive fluids may deter most vertebrate predators, they are no match for my hungry Rose hair tarantula and my Scolopendra longipes. Thus ends the Deropeltis saga... for now.

Well, that's it for this post, just wanted to let you all know what's left my collection! Thanks for reading, will see you all next time! 😉

Anallacta Oothecae, Arenivaga Adults & Other Stuff...

My Anallacta methanoides have started laying oothecae now, and I am very excited! 😄 Once I get some offspring from these, I'll finally be able to spread this species around in the US hobby, there seem to be a lot of people interested in these now who will hopefully be able to keep them going in culture here for years to come!

Here are some pictures of one of my females laying an ootheca:

Will keep you all posted on them!

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My Arenivaga bolliana have started to mature now, mostly males so far, but I think I saw one small adult female in there too! Gotta rehouse them now, I didn't realize they were so close to maturity, and their enclosure is way too small for the amount of adults I'll have! Also, there is a sizable Porcellio scaber colony in their current enclosure, and while they haven't caused any problems yet, I am afraid they'll attack any new Arenivaga oothecae, so I'll have to eradicate them all.

Also, one of my Arenivaga floridensis "White" females is now a subadult, so I hope to finally start breeding this species soon! 😊

Here are some pictures of her:

She's a real beauty, hopefully she'll mature in a month or two! 😍

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I have some good news and some bad news regarding my Pystalla horrida. Good news, I finally got them to feed on male Blaberus sp. "Venezuela", which they really seem to like! 🙂 Bad news, they still won't eat Hemiblabera tenebricosa adults or nymphs. I only have less than 10 Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" males left, and my colony is way too small for me to feed off any of my females. I have TONS of the Hemiblabera though, so I really need the assassin bugs to start eating those instead.

I think part of the reason they won't eat the Hemiblabera is that they often play dead and are relatively inactive compared to the Blaberus, I may try dumping way more Hemiblabera than they could eat in their enclosure, since they will likely move more if they are always bumping into each other. If I do, I'll be sure to toss some fruit in there so the roaches won't turn on the assassin bugs.

Anyway, dietary problems aside, my last Pystalla nymph has matured and came out perfect, here are some pictures of it:

Hopefully I can get them to eat the Hemiblabera soon, but I'm glad they are eating something at least! This has brought to my attention how minimally prolific my Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" have been though, so I should really look into revamping that colony...

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Lastly, I just cleaned out my Paranauphoeta discoidalis container, since most of the substrate was frass, redesigned their enclosure and added dead leaves and moss to the enclosure, etc. I have a lot more adults than I thought I did, so I'm expecting to have a population boom soon! 😁

I've also learned that the adults of this species seem to need vertical hides like eggcartons or bark slabs propped upright in order to properly form their wings. Took me a while to realize this, and as a result more than half of my adults have messed up wings. Most of the deformities are not very noticeable, just very slightly ruffled wings, others look really messed up though. But hey, at least now I know, and most of my newer adults are coming out with perfect wings now that I added some more vertical surfaces for them.

Here are some pictures I took of a few adults the other day:

With any luck I will have a big baby boom soon, as some of my females look like they are going to burst!

Anyway, that's it for today's post, thank you everyone for reading, will see you all in the next one! 😉

Baby Roaches! (or Therea Thursday, Sorta)

A couple weeks ago my female Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" gave birth to a 20 or so nymphs, which are all doing pretty well. I am glad that I have had success with this species, as it is my favorite Blaberus I've kept by far.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs, which look a lot like my Blaberus atropos nymphs:

Hopefully they'll reach adulthood with no problems. :)

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All of my Corydidarum pygmaea babies have molted and now like to hang around the lid and by the food bowl, which worries me just a little bit. According to "For the Love of Cockroaches", too much or too little moisture can affect how much the nymphs climb, so I'm a bit worried that the humidity levels in the enclosure are not to their liking.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the little cuties:

I really hope this species continues to do well for me, I really love these guys, and really all of the Perisphaerinae!

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I got a request to do an update on my Therea species, and to be honest, this update is a bit overdue.

First let's start with my T.olegrandjeani. All three of the newer adult females are still alive and are laying oothecae, and the offspring my previous adults produced are getting bigger.
Here are some pictures of my larger T.olegrandjeani nymphs:

My T.petiveriana females are also still alive and pumping out oothecae, and some of their oothecae have already hatched, and some of the resulting nymphs have molted a couple times.
Here are some pics of the nymphs:

And lastly, my T.regularis have reproduced as well. I never posted this, but my first adult male died quite a while back, but the other four nymphs matured into another male and three females, one of which has passed away, the other two are still alive and laying oothecae though.
Anyway, here are some pictures of some newborn nymphs:

I'm happy I've been able to breed all three species successfully, and I hope they continue to do well in my care!

Anyway, that's gonna do it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all soon! :)

Some Roach Updates & a Neat Find!

Just found a rather large ootheca in my Arenivaga bolliana enclosure, and I thought I'd post some pictures of it, there's not that many pictures of Arenivaga ootheca online.

Hopefully I'll soon see babies in the enclosure, I'm so glad to finally be breeding this species after wanting them for years! :)

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One of my Balta notulata matured today, which is great, really hope some of the others will follow soon! 

Here are some pictures I took of it: (The eyes look red cause of the flash, they are actually black):

I love the ornate markings on the pronotum, can't wait until they start breeding!

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My Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" female matured a little while ago, and I realized I have not taken any pictures of her yet, which is crazy considering how nice looking she is! She's got red pronotum markings, which I love, the red pronotum color form of this species is my favorite, I wonder if it could be isolated or if it's just random?

Anway, here are some pictures of her:

Hopefully it'll only be a couple of months before she gives birth, this may be my favorite Blaberus species in the hobby!

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My Dorylaea orini have been doing OK, the females seem to be getting old as the ootheca they have been producing the last couple of weeks are small and very weird looking. I'm still waiting on the good looking oothecae to hatch, it probably won't be long now. 

Here are some pictures I took of them today:

And some pics of the oothecae

Can't wait to see some hatchlings, this species is very beautiful!

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The other day while I was doing maintenance in my Pycnoscelus surinamensis enclosure I came across something really rare and interesting, a mature male! This species, which reproduces exclusively by parthenogenesis, very rarely produces males, which are sterile and unable to mate with the females. Finding a male surinam roach is very rare, so I was very surprised to see this guy at the top of the substrate. 

Here are some pictures of him:

As you can see, male surinam roaches are much more slender than the females, and have longer wings that cover the whole abdomen. I'm really glad I was able to photograph this guy, It'll probably be a long time until I see another one. 

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A couple of days ago my mom found a rather large female katydid, (Microcentrum rhombifolium), on the sidewalk, which she caught for me. :) I ended up letting her go since I'm not interested in keeping insects that feed on living plants, but I did take some pictures of her before I released her. 

Here she is:

It was very cool seeing this amazing leaf mimic in person, and I'm glad I was able to photograph her. :)

Anyway, that's gonna be it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all next post!