Prionotheca Update #7

Had a bit of a scare last week, I opened one of my Prionotheca cups and the larva was on top of the substrate, upside down and very thin. I had seen it make a bit of a molting tunnel earlier and assumed it was in premolt, so I had been leaving it alone for the most part, but I accidentally let the lower layers of the substrate dry out too much and evidently the tunnel collapsed and the larva just dug it's way to the top, in search of moisture probably... 

So I instantly misted the top of the substrate quite a bit, smoothed it out and placed the larva on top, hoping that'd be enough moisture to get it to molt correctly, and that I hadn't just killed one of my precious trio... 

Thankfully, that's just what was needed, and the larva molted perfectly fine the next day, stayed on top of the substrate for a day or two, (seems they take a while to fully sclerotize after molting), and then it burrowed down. 😅 I've since moved it to a larger enclosure with a deeper substrate, and have made sure the lower layer inch or so is nice and humid. 

Here are some pictures of the larva when it was still a little teneral, (mostly close up shots):

Love the way these larvae look, very broad and bulky things! 😁 

So, crisis averted, and all three of my precious Prionotheca seem to be doing OK! They're taking a while to grow, but I think that's because my room's gotten quite a bit cooler now that it's late Fall, and I don't have them directly near my heat cable (that's being dedicated to my roaches ATM)... So this may add a couple more months to their growth cycle, but as long as they're alive and healthy, that's all I care about right now. 

Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, hope y'all enjoyed, see you next time! 😉

The Rarest Hisser...

Magnificent Beasts Package Series Pt. 6/6

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I saved the best (IMO) for last this order, this is the species I was looking forward to the most from this box! Introducing to the Invertebrate Dude collection what is perhaps the most consistently rare and uncommon hisser species in culture, the "Bumpy hisser" Elliptorhina davidi! 😁 Brandon's bred this very finicky species quite successfully, and was able to send me a trio of nymphs, (one male, two females). I'm so looking forward to breeding this species myself, let's talk more about them and what makes them so unique and rare. 

This is a dwarf hisser, and adults max out at around 52 mms long. Nymphs and most adult females are covered in little tubercles dorsally, most hissers have at least a few tubercles, but these E.davidi take it to another level! 😃 Adult males are usually rather smooth though apparently, at least on their abdomens. 

Nymphs have very striking, fiery coloration that differs between individuals and molts, and they're among the prettiest hissers as nymphs IMO! 😍 Adults are pretty nice looking too I hear! 

Unfortunately though, all these pros aren't without their cons... For whatever reason, E.davidi are prone to massive, seemingly random colony crashes, which has made establishing them in culture a slow and tedious process, with starter colonies appearing on the market for a short while and then becoming unavailable for long stretches of time, as people's colonies boom and crash. 😔 Sometimes nymphs die off randomly only a few at a time, other times adult females will die prematurely after a couple litters, and sometimes entire colonies just have massive die offs. Some blame overcrowding, others humidity requirements, and some think it's due to inbreeding, (though I'm always hesitant to blame problems on inbreeding in Blatticulture). Perhaps it's a combination of several small husbandry issues, in any case it's unclear why these crashes happen, but they do, and yet these roaches have persisted in culture for years, always remaining rare but never dying out completely. 

I'm hoping to establish a colony successfully and then disperse them in the US as much as possible to keep them firmly established here, hopefully they'll become a little more commonly kept in the years to come. 🤞

I have my trio set up in a well ventilated 2 gallon container with a substrate of coconut fiber, and am using bark for hides. I'll be keeping half the enclosure humid, the other half dry, and will be keeping them at around 75-85F°. I'm feeding them chick feed, artificial pollen and fruits. 

Here are some pictures of my nymphs:

Female #1

Female #2

Male

Such pretty nymphs right? 😍 And look at those bumps!!! Can't wait until they mature, here's hoping they'll breed well for me! I will keep you all updated on their progress! 

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, I'd like to give a HUGE thank you to Brandon Maines at Magnificent Beasts for all these amazing species, he's really been such a key player in US Blatticulture for the past couple years now, and here's hoping he'll continue to be for years to come! 😁 Hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉

Some Ergaula capucina Pictures

Ty Schaben Order Pt. 7/8

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That big order with all the new species Ty bought also had some Ergaula capucina in it. Now, I'm not particularly interested in keeping this species, and I've bred them before, however looking back I was unsatisfied with the quality of the pictures I took of this species in the past... So I figured I'd snap some better, clearer pictures of these while they were briefly in my possession, especially since there were adults in the container! 😄

Here they are:

Adult male #1

Adult male #2

Adult female

Nymph

Definitely a neat little species, actually becoming a little scarce in the US hobby, seems most people prefer the bigger E.pilosa, (though I have little interest in keeping either ATM). Maybe I'll keep these again one day, for now I'd just like to see more people breeding them. 🙂

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

The Mysterious Tiger Hissers!

Magnificent Beasts Package Series Pt. 5/6

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My inner "Hisserdude" is really making a resurgence isn't it, even making me want to keep a species I've kept in the past! (though it was just a solo male, back before I actually bred roaches). 😂 Tiger hissers have long been a staple in US Blatticulture, though they are more finicky than most other hissers to breed, and for the longest time they've been labeled as "Gromphadorhina grandidieri". However, they are not similar at all to museum specimens or descriptions of that species in scientific articles, thus have almost certainly been misidentified.

In Europe, there are very similar strains of hissers called "Princisia vanwaerebeki - Tricolor" and "P.vanwaerebeki - Black & White", but adult males from pure stock of these and the US Tigers have pronotum and horn structure that differs a bit from that of normal vanwaerebeki IMO (notably, just a much shallower anterior pronotum notch, and smaller, less pointed horns)... So I wasn't sure about that ID, and sadly it seems a lot of the EU "Tricolor" and "Black & White" strains have been hybridized and have inconsistent adult coloration anyways, with G.portentosa-like individuals popping up on occasion. The US Tigers have little adult color variation, but have been known to throw out pitch black individuals, though that has become a VERY rare occurrence in US cultures, so most stock within the US seems to be pure. 

It's this uncertainty about their identification that actually made me want to acquire this species, as I wanted to send pictures of the pronotum of a large adult male to George Beccaloni, the man who is responsible for the Cockroach Species File and is working on revising the Gromphadorhini. While I have personally thought this species might be undescribed, (if they are indeed pure and the coloration isn't a man made result of hybridization or crazy selective breeding, which I doubt because they just popped up on US lists with this appearance from the beginning), I figured it couldn't hurt to have a taxonomist's opinion, specifically one who has been working on the Gromphadorhini. 

And so, I asked Brandon Maines for a large male, and a pair of nymphs too, because why not? They can be somewhat finicky compared to other hissers, and I feel it'd be good to have another person working with pure stock of these in the US. 😄

I have my trio (one large adult male, and a sexed pair of large nymphs) set up in a well ventilated container, with a substrate of coconut fiber, and bark for hides. I'm keeping them on the humid side of things, with about two thirds of the enclosure kept humid, the rest dry, as this species actually likes things more humid than other hissers. I'm keeping them warm, 75+F°, and will feed them chick feed, fruits, and maybe the occasional bit of artificial pollen. 

Anyways, here are those long awaited pictures of the adult male:

A striking species, one that I'll hopefully be able to breed well! 🙂 I sent those pictures to George Beccaloni, asked him about the pronotum differences between these and normal Princisia, and this is what he had to say:

"IMHO it is a variation of Princisia vanwaerebeki. Yes, there are some differences in the pronotum structure - but the shape is still more similar to Princisia than any other genus."

I then asked about the consistent size differences between these and normal Princisia vanwaerebeki in culture, to which he replied:

"The smaller size could very well explain the different pronotal morphology. Could be a different population - even a subspecies. The distributions of no species of hisser are really known at all. I found mine [vanwaerebeki] near Fort Dauphin - but perhaps the tiger hissers were collected in a different area. I still think they are P.vanwaerebeki. Within a population - especially in captivity, the pronotal morphology varies dramatically with body size."

Finally, I asked about how I should go about naming these, and he said Princisia vanwaerebeki "Tiger" would be the most accurate name for them ATM... Technically I could call them "Tricolor" or "Black & White" like they do in Europe, but those stocks seem to be a bit different in comparison, so I'm just gonna keep the "Tiger" moniker for US stock for now...

I'm definitely thinking that if these are truly Princisia vanwaerebeki, then they must represent a new subspecies for sure, or at least a VERY distinct geological phenotype... Because while the abdominal patterning is similar to that of the holotype individuals of P.vanwaerebeki, the size difference between these and typical Princisia is quite significant, as is the pronotum structure, (which seem to go hand in hand). That being said, of all the ID opinions to go with, I'm going to side with the taxonomist who's working on revising the Gromphadorhini and has been on hisser collecting trips to Madagascar himself, (and who actually has dried WC Princisia specimens he collected from Madagascar). Would love to send him dried specimens of these Tigers for him to inspect in person, I'll have to try that once I have more adult males to part with.

So, I guess I'm going with the name Princisia vanwaerebeki "Tiger" for now, at the very least, it's more accurate than Gromphadorhina grandidieri... I mean, just compare the above roach to this wild G.grandidieri male specimen George collected (which he directly compared to the lectotype male of G.grandidieri).

Wild male G.grandidieri. ©George Beccaloni

For good measure, here's an old black and white photo of the male lectotype and female allotype of G.grandidieri, from the paper redescribing that species (the very same paper also contains the original description for P.vanwaerebeki funnily enough):

See? Looks nothing like the "Tigers", in coloration OR pronotum morphology. Now hopefully George will also deal with the question of whether Princisia is a valid genus or not when making his revision to the group, as that'll make this deliciously more complicated for the hobby if Princisia ends up a synonym of Gromphadorhina... 😜🤣

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