Saturday, December 2, 2023

Hot Roach Summer!

Along with the beetles and crickets from last post, I also got several new species of roaches from Kyle this Summer!

First off, I'm happy to add Simandoa conserfarium (the Extinct in the Wild Cockroach) to my collection once again! Last time I had this species, I didn't keep them long enough to breed them, as I left the hobby not too long after I reared my first one to adulthood. Happy to have this beautiful species in my collection once again!

I'm keeping them in a well ventilated container with an inch or so of coconut fiber as the substrate, which I'm keeping humid. They've got lots of cardboard rolls for hides, and I'm keeping them at around 80-85F°. For food I'm offering dog food and fruits.

Here are some pictures of one of my adult females:













Such a lovely species, and reaches a decent size too. Quite a shame that they are likely extinct in the wild, but at least they live on in captive culture for now. 

Next up, he sent me a group of Arenivaga spp. "Amado, AZ". That's right, spp. plural, this locality he collected has two species mixed in. One is larger and paler in coloration, the other is smaller but darker. Reminds me very much so of the two species from the "DOT Rest Area, AZ" locality Alan, and may in fact be the same two species as these lol. 
With the "Amado", I found only a single pair of the larger light species in the group, the rest of the 15-20 individuals are all the dark species. Sadly, the male light individual died before mating with the female, so I'll need to get more of that strain, though from looking at adults of both sexes I think the light species from this locality is A.erratica.

Anyways, I have my breeding group the unidentified dark species housed in a well ventilated enclosure with an inch or so of coconut fiber substrate, one third kept most, the rest bone dry. I'm offering leaf litter and dog food as the staple diet, and have them at 75-85F°.

Here are pictures of a pair of the dark species, and the lone adult female of the A.cf.erratica:

sp. "Amado - Dark" Female




sp. "Amado - Dark" Male


sp. "Amado - Dark" Pair

cf. erratica "Amado" Female




Hopefully I'll be able to get some more nymphs of the cf. erratica soon, but on the bright side I've got lots of ooths already from the dark species. 😀

I got some Paranauphoeta formosana nymphs off of him, since my previous culture petered out (perhaps due to pesticide poisoning, but I'm not really sure). In any case, hopefully this new group will do better, they've already all matured, and some of the females are plumping up, so fingers crossed! 🤞

I also got some Gyna bisannulata nymphs, all of which have matured since I got them, and one of the females even gave birth to a big litter, maybe a month or so after maturing. 😯 So, well on my way to establishing a colony of that species, after failing pretty hard with them last time.

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

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