First up, the "Philadelphia Zoo" stock. This stock is definitely pure IMO, the morphology and coloration has been very consistent and the lineage tracing places these as uncontaminated. Recently had a lovely major male pop up in my colony, that I had to snap some photos of.
These have been breeding quite well for me, and it definitely seems this species prefers much higher humidity compared to say, G.portentosa.
I was given the last pair of the "French Giant" strain left in the US hobby by Lucca's Biohub, which I'm really hopeful I can start a colony from. This line came from the French hobby and was marketed as being line bred for larger than average size. Supposedly pure, untainted stock, though the coloration of the adults I received (the female especially) is darker than I'm used to seeing in this species.
Now, I remain skeptical about the validity of line breeding hissers for size, as size is heavily determined by husbandry conditions (especially the amount of space and food given), and so it can be hard to tell whether large size is due to genetics or a less crowded enclosure, which you generally will have when line breeding for anything (at least initially).
Indeed, the pair I received was pretty stunted, the male far from being a major adult. This was likely due to husbandry, and in theory with proper care, any offspring they have should have the potential to reach the "Giant" size this strain supposedly consistently produces... but I personally highly suspect they won't be much larger on average than normal oblongonota stocks.
Here's hoping this pair will produce for me, the female looks nice and plump, so fingers crossed! 🤞
And lastly, I was sent some adults of Orin McMonigle's stock of G.oblongonota. Orin has always marketed his as "untainted" stock, so in theory they should be pure. I am noticing some coloration differences between these and the other pure oblongonota stocks I've seen, particularly the spotting on the thoracic pads of these females...
Again I am interested to see a larger sample size before throwing my weight behind a purity assessment, and need to see what the nymphs look like as well.
The adults (the males especially) are enormous, so I do really hope this is a clean line, just with some unique coloration.
Hopefully these will breed for me soon as well!
Anyways, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
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