Saturday, July 23, 2016

Click Beetles & Roaches (Kinda Picture Heavy, Not Sure if That's a Bad Thing or Not...)

So, after checking all my click beetle larva I have a few updates to give.

First off, my 4 Ampedus larva have dwindled down to 3, and one of the remaining larvae has matured! I have put an image up on Bugguide, hopefully the experts there will be able to identify it down to species. 

Here is a picture of the adult:


Also, my Melanotus cf. castanipes larva has matured, and apparently it is probably not M.castanipes, what species it is exactly has yet to be determined. 

Here are some pictures of the adult:




Also, all of my Aeolus livens and A.mellillus adults have died off without laying any eggs, all I have are three wild caught larva, presumably of A.livens.

Now to my roach updates!

The biggest and most exciting development in my collection since I have last posted is that my female Paranauphoeta discoidalis has given birth! I've been waiting quite a while for her to give birth, and was beginning to wonder if the male she mated with was too old to fertilize her, (he died a few weeks after she matured). Luckily he was still virile enough for her, and there are now a few babies crawling around in the enclosure. It seems this species has rather small litters, which typically only contain four to six hatchlings according to "For the Love of Cockroaches".

Here are some pictures of the babies:





Really glad these have bred for me, hopefully the female will give birth to more litters soon!

My Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" male has matured, and he is a beauty! My female is not too far behind, I'm pretty sure she is a pre-sub adult. He has a back pronotum spot, though some individuals of this species can have a more reddish pronotum spot.

Here are some pictures of him:








I really like this genus, particularly the smaller, stouter ones like these and B.atropos. Hopefully my female matures soon, would love it if she had an reddish pronotum spot!

Unfortunately, it seems one of my Byrsotria fumigata females has a prolapse, which is when the inner walls of her bowels basically turn inside out and are visible outside her, which is pretty gross sounding and is definitely not a good thing. It usually happens when females try to give birth or defecate, and something goes wrong or is blocking the way. I had a female Gromphadorhina sp. "Hybrid" who prolapsed, it dried up and fell off after a couple of weeks, she is still alive today I believe. Hopefully the same will happen to this Byrsotria, would be a shame if she passed away.

Here are some pictures of her, (viewer discretion is advised):



And now, here are some random photos of a couple of roaches that I have taken in the past few days, not much has changed with them but I wanted to photograph them anyway:

Hemiblabera tenebricosa mating, (A rare sight, these guys are pretty shy!)

Polyphaga saussurei nymphs


Well, that's going to be it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all next post! :)

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on the baby P. discoidali!:)
    Wow, those P.saussurei are huge for sill being nymphs! It'll be really cool when mine gets as large as yours, but I'll likely have to wait another year or so.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! :)
      Yeah they are pretty big, a little larger than an adult P.aegyptiaca, but they still have quite a bit of growing ahead. Hopefully they'll mature in less than a year from now.

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