Archimandrita tesselata VS Archimandrita marmorata

In yet another case of an old hobby stock being misidentified for decades, it has been revealed that the common "Archimandrita tesselata" stock that's been in captivity for as long as I can remember is actually, Archimandrita marmorata. 

Whereas the larger, newer Archimandrita stocks from "Cerro Chucanti, Panama" (of which there is a US hobby line and EU hobby line, both collected at different times by different people, but from the same general locality) is actually true Archimandrita tesselata. 

Thanks to Alan Jeon for initially keying these two stocks out by referencing this paper. In addition to A.tesselata being a larger species than A.marmorata, the interocular space (the space between the eyes) is wider in A.marmorata than in A.tesselata. 

The old hobby stock Archimandrita are significantly smaller than the new Panama stocks, and do have a wider interocular space, which clearly keys them out to actually be A.marmorata. 

Whereas the Panama Archimandrita are significantly larger than the old hobby stock, and have a thinner interocular space, thus clearly making them true A.tesselata.

A.tesselata "Cerro Chucanti"

A.marmorata "Old Hobby Stock"

Yet more labels to correct for all us pet roach hobbyists, and I am unfortunately sure there will be much confusion about the two stocks now... but at least we can now confirm we have both of the currently known Archimandrita species in culture now! 😅 And now know how to differentiate them as well.

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

Therea sp. "Pachmarhi" & Their Misidentifications...

Some of you may be aware of the colorful, long winged Therea species that entered culture overseas a few years back, from Pachmarhi, India. These have been slowly spreading throughout the hobby, and I'm happy to announce I received a small group of nymphs last year! 😄 They've been growing very well, though quite slowly, but I've finally got a mature pair now, so now I feel I can post about them! 

These have been misidentified as both T.irreperta and T.nuptialis, however the female genitalia of the sp. "Pachmarhi" do not match those of T.irreperta, and while the male nuptialis genitalia is a pretty close match for these sp. "Pachmarhi", again the female genitalia differ. 

However, there is a significant issue here... the only rendering we have of the genitalia of T.nuptialis comes from a paper by Grandcolas, and he did not examine the type specimen itself... rather he examined the genitalia of a few individuals from a small area (Chilika Lake). The locality of the type specimen is, unfortunately, unknown. 😩 And as Chih-Ting Hsu pointed out in my conversation with him regarding this situation, there was a species, "Corydia gueriniana", which is now a junior synonym of T.nuptialis. Since the genitalia of that species were never described, we don't really know if that species was correctly synonymized. 

This is an issue because the type locality of "C.gueriniana" was originally listed as "Indes orientales; Sangor dans l’intérieur des Indes", which is "Sagar" in Madhya Pradesh nowadays. Sagar is about 150 km from Pachmarhi, which is not very far considering the lack of a significant geographical barrier between those areas, and the fact that adults of these long winged Therea are capable of flight and thus further dispersal than the shorter winged spp.. So chances are that Therea sp. "Pachmarhi" might be conspecific with "Corydia gueriniana", which may or may not have been correctly synonymized with T.nuptialis...

All of this to say, until further work is done on the genus (preferably a thorough revision of T.nuptialis with a comparison between the type specimen and that of the now synonymized "C.gueriniana"), we should simply be labeling these as Therea sp. "Pachmarhi, India", which is what I shall be doing. 😄

I've got mine housed in a well ventilated container with a couple inches of coco fiber, with a little bit of sand and sawdust mixed in, topped with leaf litter. I'm keeping them on a 50/50 humidity gradient, at around 80-85F°. I'm offering dog food as the staple diet, and some apple slices for the adults.

Here are some pictures of my individuals, as well as pictures of the genitalia of sp. "Pachmarhi" courtesy of Chih-Ting Hsu (and figures of the genitalia of nuptialis and irreperta for comparison):

Medium nymph

Adult male

Adult female

Adult pair

Phone pics of adult pair

Male sp. "Pachmarhi" genitalia ©️Chih-Ting Hsu

Female sp. "Pachmarhi" genitalia ©️Chih-Ting Hsu

T.nuptialis genitalia (male fig. 14, female fig. 19), & T.irreperta genitalia (female bottom)

It will be interesting to see what these end up being identified as in the future! But for now, whatever they are, I can definitely say they are an absolutely stunning new addition to culture, and one I hope will breed well for me over the coming months! 😍 

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

Real Hemiblabera brunneri!

I can hardly believe it folks, but it looks like we finally have true Hemiblabera brunneri in culture, from Manati, Puerto Rico! Not mislabeled H.roseni, but real, bonefide H.brunneri! I have read the original description for that species by Saussure, 1869 (which mistakenly reports the locality as being "Brasilia", a mistake Princis, 1963 later noted when moving this species to Hemiblabera), and these seem to match perfectly in terms of coloration, morphology, and length. These are a pretty small species, maxing out at 40 mm, and far skinnier and more cylindrical than the other Hemiblabera spp. I've kept. They are absolutely dwarfed by H.roseni, which is ironically mislabeled as H.brunneri in the European and Asian roach hobbies. So let this post serve as a wake up call to those still labeling their stocks as H.brunneri overseas; if they don't look like the below animals, they are not brunneri!

(If you'd like to read more about how I reached the conclusion that the old hobby stock Hemiblabera are H.roseni, feel free to check out my post about it here).

Now, there may be a second, darker Hemiblabera species also found on PR, however it seems H.brunneri may have variable color across it's range, (indeed Rehn & Hebard say as much in their 1927 key to the genus), so further study is needed before saying for sure. There was also another species from PR, H.manca, that was synonymized with H.brunneri, which could perhaps represent those darker phenotypes. However, the species description for manca is terribly short and bereft of any physical characteristics other than wing shape, with no mention of color...

In any case, this specific locality from Manati that we now have in culture seems to match the holotype description perfectly, so I can confidently say that these should be true H.brunneri.

I have my pair in a moderately ventilated enclosure with a substrate of coco fiber a couple inches deep, kept moist. I have them at around 75-80F, and am feeding them dog food and apple. Pretty standard Hemiblabera conditions.

Original description of brunneri

Translation

Female

Male

Pair

These are some truly stunning roaches, and it's nice to see actual representatives of a species whose name was falsely attributed to an older hobby Hemiblabera stock (namely H.roseni in the European and Asian hobbies). Hopefully these establish well for me, from what I hear they breed pretty readily in captivity, much like the other Hemiblabera spp. we have in culture. 

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