So should be a simple recessive gene, in which case, while I do hate gimicky morph names, I feel that I have to name these "Walmatian"... 🤣 Credit to Kyle from Roachcrossing calling them "Walbinos" as a joke, which inspired me. We'll see if they truly do prove out though.
Here are some pictures of them:
One of the larger males pictured here is a high expression individual, most of them have been low expression though, meaning they only have a few small flecks of pigment here and there. Mostly quite pale, which is normal among a lot of "Dalmatian" morph isopods.
Speaking of Roachcrossing, Kyle recently sent me a new Gryllus species from "New Park, AL". They are neat in that larger nymphs have a reddish brown coloration, whereas most Gryllus have pretty dark black nymphs, except for firmus, I've noticed my colony of those is throwing out paler nymphs and adults (initially a customer pointed it out to me and thought they were a different species, but after isolating pale nymphs to their own setup and letting them breed, their offspring are a mix of normal black individuals and more pale ones, so it seems to be just one species with variable coloration).
Anyways, I've got the sp. "New Park" set up in a well ventilated 5 gallon gasket bin with an inch or so of coco fiber, topped with lots of eggcrates and bark hides (they're being cohabbed with pure Blaberus sp. "peruvianus"). I'm keeping a third of the enclosure moist, the rest dry, and am feeding them dog food and fruits.
Here are somw pictures of an adult female:
Anyways, I've got the sp. "New Park" set up in a well ventilated 5 gallon gasket bin with an inch or so of coco fiber, topped with lots of eggcrates and bark hides (they're being cohabbed with pure Blaberus sp. "peruvianus"). I'm keeping a third of the enclosure moist, the rest dry, and am feeding them dog food and fruits.
Here are somw pictures of an adult female:
A really neat new addition to culture, their chirp is pretty and they are very easy to keep and breed. Mine have already produced oodles of nymphs!
My Spherillo sp. "Dream" have been thriving, I recently replaced their old substrate and revamped their setup, and they've produced a bunch of mancae as of late as a result.
Managed to snag some pictures of a few of them:
Pictures really don't do these justice... though I will say these came out a lot better than the last pics I posted of this species. 😄
Now for yet another hisser project... I am "Hisserdude" after all. 😆 I'm currently working on refining a more consistently and vibrantly striped line of Princisia vanwaerebeki "Big/Black - 2017 CCR Stock". My main B/B colony is quite variable, throwing out a mix of high striped, low striped, very dark and straight up melanistic adults (the latter I've already isolated a true breeding line of, "Obsidian"). However I really would like a line that consistently only throws out individuals with the orange/yellow abdominal margins. And not just the more squared off, thin margins, but ones where the orange margins turn into side-striping. As that coloration is my favorite in the "Big/Black" phenotype.
So first, I had to isolate a culture that only produced individuals with abdominal margins and breeds true to that. I accomplished this in a generation, it was actually incredibly easy. Now I've isolated the individuals from that colony with the highest amount of side-striping, a 2.2 group of fresh adults, and have them in their own enclosure. With any luck, their high level of abdominal patterning will be heritable, and I can have a true breeding colony of very "Vibrant" B/B within another generation or two. 🤞
Here are some pictures of the individuals I've picked for the highest amount of striping:
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| Females |
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| Male |
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| Pair |
Pretty, right? Now here is a more normally patterned female for comparison, note how square/rectangular the abdominal margins are, barely cutting into the black at all:
Weirdly, males seem to much more commonly throw out a higher level of abdominal patterning than females, there were plenty of males that had the nice sidestriping in the colony I pulled these out of, but most females had just the normal, more squared off abdominal margins.
Anyways, here's hoping I'll have success with this line breeding project, fingers crossed! 🤞
Well, that does it for this post, thanks for reading, hope everyone enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
