Golden Dubia Babies, Tafalisca Adult, Darkling Updates & More!

For the first time ever, I've bred Blaptica dubia! 😁 And not just any B.dubia, but Roachcrossing's "Unnamed Gold" morph! 😍 One of my females popped out a small brood of maybe a dozen nymphs, and is still fat, so many more should be coming from her, and her several other female cohorts. 😄

Here are some pictures of the little babies, plus some pictures of a couple of my adult females, showing a little bit of the variability of this strain:

Nymphs

Adult females

A lovely line of dubia, hopefully I'll have a bustling colony soon! 😁

---

I'm VERY excited to announce that one of my Tafalisca eleuthera females has matured, and OMG they're so cool and sizeable!!! 😍😃

Here are some pictures of her:

I've also got a male nymph that seems to be a subadult or at least pre-sub, so I'll have a mature pair soon! And there's two other, smaller female nymphs and another male nymph. Looking forward to breeding these and establishing a nice colony!

---

I've reared another Asbolus mexicanus mexicanus to adulthood, and have another pupa that looks about ready to eclose as well. 😄 Just figured I'd mention it, keep a little tally of how many adults I've reared up so far (2), hopefully there's a lot more where these came from! 🤞

---

Lastly, in exciting news, my Eleodes spinipes ventricosa female has finally started ovipositing! Not sure why, but she did not like her old substrate, a mix of sand and old cockroach substrate (which usually works fine for Eleodes spp. in my experience). I think it may have felt too degraded and "peaty" for her, she started eagerly ovipositing as soon as I put her on a substrate of fresh, plain coconut fiber. Whatever, as long as she's laying eggs, I'm happy, excited to start getting larvae of this more difficult to breed subspecies of E.spinipes. 😅

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, I hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Gold Dubias, Pink Roach Babies & Baby Pseudoglomeris!!!

Finally, I have adults popping up in my Blaptica dubia "Unnamed Gold Morph" colony from Kyle of Roachcrossing! 😁 (You REALLY need to decide on a name for these Kyle... 🙃).

The females are quite a bit darker than I was expecting, though I suppose I'd just forgotten that traditionally the females of "Gold" dubia lines are pretty dark in comparison to more yellow lines, like JohnFrost's "Amber Dubia" strain (which coincidentally have also just become publicly available). The males of Kyle's "Gold" strain are very pale though, as are the nymphs, and overall all life stages are very close in appearance to the EU "Gold" lines of dubia out there, without the accompanying health issues and poor breeding vigor those lines usually have.

Here are some pics of an adult pair:

Adult female

Adult male

Adult pair

Very pretty strain, really hope they'll breed well for me! As far as my first dubias go, glad I got to work with this strain! 😁

---

I'm happy to report that my Gyna capucina have had babies! 😁 And I'm talking dozens of the things, seems like one of the females had a decent sized litter! Upon the suggestion of my buddy Alan Jeon, I've been keeping my adults separate from their nymph siblings, as it seems like larger nymphs might stress out the females of the larger Gyna spp. (at least in small enclosures). I also gave my adults a shallow but very chunky and well aerated substrate. I honestly haven't been keeping them very hot, only like 75-80F°, and still that's been enough to breed them. Very happy to have finally successfully bred these beauties, which are direct descendants of the old colony I received from an old friend of mine years ago. 😊

---

Lastly, last night I found that one of my last two female Pseudoglomeris tarsalis had given birth to a full sized litter of 15-20 nymphs! 😁

This species has NOT been doing great for me, as I'd mentioned in a previous post, and even in their new setup with no males and less springtails, they just weren't doing well. So, I decided to pull a Hail Mary, and threw my remaining two females in my Pseudoglomeris aerea "Yunnan" setup (of course, after removing the one adult male aerea that was in there, since I don't wanna make hybrids).

The P.aerea have been doing phenomenally, so I thought that by throwing the tarsalis in there, they would benefit from the allee effect, since there's a lot of healthy aerea nymphs bustling around in there. I also though they may possibly prefer just the aerea setup itself, perhaps the specific humidity gradient and ventilation levels of that enclosure were more conducive to breeding Pseudoglomeris than the tarsalis's old setups (despite me attempting to keep them essentially the same).

Either way, it worked, and I managed to save my tarsalis. 😅 Hopefully the other female gives birth soon, then begins the process of me removing all the tarsalis from that setup before Fall when I throw the aerea into their diapause... and/or before any aerea start maturing, whichever comes first, can't be making hybrids after all... 😂

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! 😉

Golden Showers & Honky Tonky-wa Roaches

Roachcrossing April Package Series Pt. 4/5

««« Previous post in series • Next post in series »»»

For the first time ever, I've got Dubia roaches! 😃 But these aren't your run of the mill Dubia, rather these are Kyle's new Blaptica dubia "Golden Shower" strain! 🤣 Seriously though, he's not named them officially yet, the "Golden Shower" moniker is one JungKai Wang made for them in jest, and now several of us tease Kyle by calling them that... It'll be hilarious if that's the name that sticks though. 😂

Anyways, Kyle sent me a group of nymphs, including a subadult pair. Sadly though, the subadults both died seemingly in premolt, not exactly sure why considering all the smaller nymphs have molted several times in my care now with no issues... Perhaps the subadults we're just stressed from shipping?

I've got my surviving nymphs housed in a well ventilated gallon container with an inch or so of coconut fiber as the substrate. I'm keeping a quarter of the enclosure humid, the rest bone dry, at around 75-80F°. I'm feeding them dog food and fruits.

Here are some pics of the nymphs:

Quit an attractive dubia morph! Hopefully I'll see adults soon, fingers crossed, definitely want to help keep these going in culture! 😁

---

As for the last roach Kyle sent me, I'm finally trying again with the old hobby stock of Arenivaga tonkawa (from San Antonio, TX). I think this is my third attempt with this species, and this time Kyle sent me a good group of nymphs (lots of which were subadults that have since matured) and a sexed pair of adults.

I'm keeping them in a small, well ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of used Gyna substrate (old degraded coconut fiber) as their substrate, with leaf litter on top. I'm keeping half the enclosure humid, half dry, and have them at around 75-80F°. I've already gotten ooths from them, so this time things seem to be going well. If I get offspring from them then I'll have finally passed my main hurdle with this species, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! 🤞😅

Here are a few pics of them:

Adult female

Adult male

Hopefully I can get these breeding well for me, failing with this species twice has been a personal source of shame for me, since I typically do well with western Arenivaga spp., so hopefully I can overcome this obstacle and reclaim some of my pride with keeping this species. 😂

Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, stay buggy, and I'll see you all next time! 😉