I've managed to get a SINGLE offspring by crossing female Princisia vanwaerebeki "Tiger" to male Elliptorhina davidi, which seems to be a healthy individual, but mostly the females have just been aborting their ooths far before developing them fully.
Attempts to cross Elliptorhina laevigata males to female Gromphadorhina portentosa "Masoala" have consistently ended in failure, as have attempts to cross Gromphadorhina oblongonota males to Aeluropoda insignis females.
All of this is to say that some crosses definitely seem more viable than others, and the success of the cross might come down to hard to recreate variables, not just in husbandry but also in the size and morphological compatibility of the individuals chosen for crossing.
One cross that seems to work pretty consistently though, is crossing Gromphadorhina portentosa to Princisia vanwaerebeki, and one such project in my collection are these Gromphadorhina portentosa "Masoala" × Princisia vanwaerebeki "Big/Black × Androhamana". The F1 adult males all look pretty much like portentosa in coloration, but have morphology more similar to Princisia (especially the pronotum morphology). The F1 adult females have been more variable in coloration but all have striped abdomens.
I haven't bothered giving this cross a nothospecies name yet, as I don't know whether they're worth keeping or not. I've isolated a couple of the most impressive adults for line breeding, the goal would be to consistently have adults with bright orange abdomens, preferably very stripey on both sexes (though I'll settle for just the females being striped), and males that consistently have that more Princisia-like pronotum morphology. Breeding for size would also be nice, and these seem to consistently throw out majors already at F1, but I'll see if line breeding can have any compounding effect on that.
Here's hoping for some interesting results in the F2 of this cross!
I was gifted two species of Pelmatosilpha spp. earlier this year by Alan Jeon... and unfortunately have failed with both.
My Pelmatosilpha sp. "Manati, PR" did well at first, growing quite fast, and I still have several adult males that are healthy and doing well. Unfortunately, all of the females (of which there were far less than males), grew up deformed and sickly, and I ended up with no healthy adult females... so now I've only got males. 😩
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| Pelmatosilpha sp. "Manati, PR" |
It would seem this genus prefers dry hides, and very high air humidity. Unfortunately for the Pelmatosilpha coriacea "Air Bnb, PR" Alan sent me, I kept them quite moist, and the hides I gave them got rather soggy. So only one of those survived longer than a couple weeks, though after correcting the issue it did make it to adulthood, (ironically, a healthy adult female).
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| Pelmatosilpha coriacea "Air Bnb, PR" |
Quite a pretty genus, it's unfortunate that I messed up with the P.coriacea so badly, and TBH I've no idea what happened with the P.sp. "Manati"... Sometimes luck's just not on your side. But I wanted to share the few pics of these spp. that I got anyways.
I really thought that my one female Therea petiveriana that has matured thus far, did so AFTER my first adult male died... And I know for a fact no other males have matured since then. However, evidently, she did mature before he kicked the bucket, and just evaded my detection until after he died, because not only did she lay lots of ooths (larger ooths, higher in volume than is normal for unmated female roaches), but a month or so ago, I started finding hatchlings in the enclosure!
So, I've successfully secured a second generation of these beauties in my collection, and still have some large nymphs from last generation I'm waiting on to mature (hopefully even more in sync than my last two adults). 😄
Awesome news all around for the US hobby regarding Therea, hopefully next year I can make both true T.petiveriana, and T.sp."Pachmarhi" available for the first time here! 😁
Earlier this year, I received what was supposed to be a 1.2 group of Anomalipus elephas, a very large and morphologically unique species of darkling beetle from South Africa. Unfortunately though, as is often the case with WC Tenebs, they were misidentified, and actually a mix of two species... 1 male A.elephas, and 2 A.mastodon.
Where A.elephas are a very sexually dimorphic species, with large, gorilla looking males, A.mastodon are not sexually dimorphic, and I've honestly no clue what sex mine are. They are also significantly smaller than at least major male A.elephas, and don't have nearly as dramatic morphology as that species... so I am quite bummed out that I didn't end up with a breeding group of elephas. However, I'll be even more bummed if both my A.mastodon are males as well, so I'm really hoping they're mated females or a sexed pair... 🤞😅
I've got all three housed together in the same enclosure, since they're found sympatrically in the wild, hybridization shouldn't be an issue (and if they're all males after all, it'll be even less of an issue... 🥲). They're in a large, well ventilated enclosure with a couple inches of substrate, a mix of coco fiber, coco coir chunks, aged sawdust, sand, and leaf litter. I'm keeping two thirds of the enclosure humid, the rest dry (these prefer more humid conditions compared to desert darkling spp.). They're kept at around 75-80F°, and I'm feeding them dog food and fruit slices (they also seem to love eating leaf litter).
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| A.elephas male |
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| A.mastodon |
Unfortunate that I didn't end up with a breeding group of A.elephas, though I'd still be happy to get offspring from the A.mastodon. Their breeding season starts around October, so if either of the mastodon is a female (and being WC, they should be mated and have sperm retained), then I can expect to see eggs being laid around then. This genus is apparently not too picky about oviposition medium, and I think the substrate in their enclosure is pretty optimal for that task, so if I don't find offspring this Fall/Winter, I'll have to assume the mastodon are both males as well... so we shall see.
Last, but not least, a Rochaina spp. update!
Unfortunately, my R.bilunata have contracted a Serratia infection, and are not taking it well at all. I don't even know how they could have contracted it, and it makes me wary of certain pests like grain mites or phorid flies possibly being vectors for that bacteria...
Several nymphs have died before making it to maturity, and several more have matured into quite deformed and unhealthy adults, almost all of which have died within a week or two of maturing. There is one adult female that is holding out and actually does seem healthy (though her wings are quite deformed), and has been alive for several weeks now. However, none of the remaining male nymphs are particularly close to maturity, and there's only one or two female nymphs left. So the odds are not looking favorable at all, and the conditions that would hinder the effects of Serratia (namely dry, low humidity conditions) would kill my remaining R.bilunata faster...
Thus, I am doomed to stay the course in terms of husbandry, watch them grow and die and just hope that at least ONE healthy female and ONE healthy male mature within each other's adult lifespan, mate and produce ooths... even just one good ooth, and I could secure another generation (and isolate it from the parents in a sterile environment, to prevent the offspring from also contracting Serratia).
I'll try my best of course, but obviously I am not holding my breath for the R.bilunata...
In more positive news, my R.metae, unhindered by disease, are thriving! The females have been laying oothecae at a pretty good pace, and I am confident I have secured a next generation. 😁 Really looking forward to seeing hatchlings of this species again, hopefully by November/December. 🤞
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| Female laying an ooth |
Really weird looking when they're making their oothecae! Also, I've noticed they do seem to have an upper limit of 12-15 adults per 5 gallons, before they start bullying and killing each other. Not a very communal genus for sure, and seemingly one that does not benefit from the allee effect.
I've written a caresheet for this genus now, the first of it's kind, and I hope it will prove a valuable resource for those looking into breeding this and related genera. 😁 I also went back and updated a bunch of my older caresheets with new husbandry information I've compiled over the past couple years, as well as nomenclature updates. Wrote up a couple other new sheets as well, and hope to write more soon.
Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks everyone for reading, hope y'all enjoyed, and I'll see you in the next post! 😉
