Almost two weeks ago, out of curiosity, I asked one of the "least-publicized" yet most knowledgeable blatticulturalists out there, Cody Will, what species of roaches he kept. Well this led to him sharing his fantastic Flickr account with me (which I HIGHLY recommend you check out right here) and us swapping collection lists. His list was epic (the largest I had seen behind those of a couple hobbyists by the names of Kyle K and Alan J) and apparently a few species from mine caught his eye! So anyway, he very kindly sent me four species in exchange for a few of mine when they start reproducing! 😁 This package that I received about a week ago contained two African Bullet Roach oothecae, an adult Lucihormetica verrucosa pair, ten small-medium Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" nymphs, and an adult female Eurycotis decipiens! As always, I'll start with the species I'm most excited about getting my hands on below. ⬇ 😀
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Before the introduction of grossei, Lucihormetica verrucosa, the Warty Glowspot Roach, was my favorite species in the genus and now it's mine! I was expecting nymphs, but Cody graciously sent me a pair of adults instead, which I really appreciate. 🙂 These guys are a bit smaller in person than I imagined, but I don't care since they are just as beautiful! The male I received seems to be on the latter end of his lifespan, but the female is still young and full of exuberance so as long as they pair up a couple times before he passes away, she should still be producing young for a long while.
I have them housed in a 64 oz. container with a couple dozen needle-holes poked in the lid currently, but once my girl produces her first litter of young, I'll move them to a more spacious colony container. In addition to this, I am keeping them on a moist substrate mix of coconut fiber, sphagnum moss, cypress mulch, rotten wood, dead hardwood leaves, and coconut husk with a piece of egg crate for hiding/climbing purposes.
Here's a few pics of my beauts and their enclosure!
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| Adult male L.verrucosa |
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| Adult female L.verrucosa |
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| Adult pair of L.verrucosa |
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| L.verrucosa enclosure |
Secondly, besides it's blatticomposting capabilities, Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" makes for an attractive pet with it's exceptional glossiness as nymphs/ivory coloration as adults as well as a good feeder once colonies are established. It makes a ton of sense due to their lifestyle in nature, but since acquiring them I have noticed that they are very strong burrowers, even more so than L.grossei. In fact, it is hard to even contain them in a closed hand because they will just push their way out from right in between your fingers! In addition to this, the adaptations for their burrowing prowess are quite noticeable in the form of a barrel-shaped body and short/bulky legs with reduced tarsi.
I'm keeping my group of ten nymphs in a 6 qt. Sterilite container with four moderately-sized ventilation holes on each side. Their substrate is a moist mix of coconut fiber, coconut husk, sphagnum moss, cypress mulch, and dead hardwood leaves.
Here's some pics of the roaches and their enclosure!
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| Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" nymphs |
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| Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" enclosure |
Thirdly, the unidentified African Bullet Roach (some say it's Neostylopyga propinqua, but this has yet to be confirmed) is a neat little species, that, as the name suggests, hails from Africa (Mt. Kilimanjaro. Tanzania to be specific) and supposedly runs like a flying bullet! Both nymphs and adults are decorated with streaks of color that run down the sides of the pronotum and wing pads growing from a light orange to red color with age. BUT before I can witness those wonderful things, I have to get my oothecae to hatch! I'm keeping the two of them in a deli cup about half-filled with moist sphagnum moss until they (fingers crossed) hatch, in which case I will move the resulting nymphs into a larger container. One of them has already started to mold a bit around the opening so I honestly might just be dealing with one healthy ootheca here, but we'll see.
Anyway here's a couple pics of the (admittedly pretty ordinary-looking) oothecae!
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| African Bullet Roach oothecae |
And last, but certainly not least, I got a gorgeous adult female Eurycotis decipiens to pair with my lone first generation male. Upon taking her out, I actually thought she was so large that she matched up to an adult Eurycotis lixa, but a quick test with a ruler swiftly dismissed this bad observation (goes to show how long I've been without adult Eurycotis 😛). Shortly after this, she decided to lay a MONSTER ootheca for me and, despite having provided bark, she decided to stick it to the piece of egg crate I had in the container (something that is very rarely done in many people's experience with this species). Looks like babies are already in my near future!
Here are some pics of her and the huge ootheca!
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| Adult female E.decipiens |
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| E.decipiens ootheca |
I'm super pumped to work with all these new and compelling species and I'd like to give a big thank you to Cody Will for providing me them in advance, I won't forget this man.🙂
Hope you guys enjoyed this post and I'll meet you again where I always do, at the next post. Goodbye!
Nice new additions! I haven't read the whole post yet, just wanted to tell you though that there's been some sort of mixup, that female Lucihormetica is L.subcincta, NOT verrucosa. L.verrucosa females have longer wings that are more orange in color, see here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjelds/4927345364
ReplyDeleteAnother female image: http://www.biolib.cz/en/image/id236499/
DeleteAs you can see, they are quite different looking. Misidentification aside, I really hope those two didn't mate, otherwise you may have hybrids on your hands!
Awe dude, I thought the same thing at first, but kind of thought my eyes were deceiving me and google didn't turn up too many good results so that's where my ignorance stemmed from. Now I'm worried, are you aware if Lucihormetica can hybridize?
DeleteYeah, sorry man, looks like she's a subcincta.
DeleteI have no idea, I've never heard of any hybrids being created in captivity, but I don't know if that's because they can't or because no one's ever housed two different species together.
Thanks so much for pointing this out TJ. Sorry Josh, you'll have a female verrucosa on the way soon! Can't believe I missed this (guess that's what I get for packing boxes in a hurry). I won't say names, but my entire colony came from a "very reliable guy" who originally got it from another "reliable guy" who likely got it from the "most reliable guy". Somewhere along the transition between these different collectors a couple of subcincta nymphs must have got mixed in somehow, which would have become these adults as of recently. After you guys caught this, I completely dug up my entire colony of 40+ adults and did find one more subcincta female in there but zero subcincta males. I've never owned subcincta (until now I guess) but she was immediately isolated. I have a hunch these two different species can't hybridize but I can't say for sure. With no males present though, my verrucosa females should be just fine though that subcincta female will need to be isolated and wait to see if an aborted ooth or babies pop out.
ReplyDeleteNo problem man! :) Honestly I doubt they can hybridize too, but it would definitely be best to isolate those females and see what happens.
DeleteExcited to finally witness an actual L.verrucosa female in person! :p It's a big relief that no males ended up being present in your colony, all the females would have been possibly tainted then! I'm waiting back on a message from Kyle on whether he knows if they can hybridize or not, but I suspect he probably isn't sure either.
DeleteWell hey, once you are sure the subcincta females haven't been fertilized by the verrucosa males, all you guys gotta do is get male subcincta and you'll be able to breed them! :p
DeleteCody's getting the female back, so he'll be able to breed them. ;)
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