More Jerusalem Cricket Eggs & A Couple Roach Updates

Yesterday I took a look at Ripper's enclosure and saw an egg in the substrate through the side of the container. I thought it may have been an extra egg from her last clutch that I missed, and so I dug it up carefully, and ended up finding six eggs! Today I examined the enclosure more carefully and found another six close to where the others were, so it looks like she laid another clutch of twelve eggs! I'm very excited that she has laid so many eggs already, here's hoping they all hatch!

Will keep you guys posted as to any new developments!

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I am very happy to announce the introduction of a new species to my collection, I have acquired five oothecae of the Gisborne Cockroach, Drymaplaneta semivitta! It is a species that has been bred in Japan for a while and has come and gone from the European hobby, cultures can apparently be difficult to maintain over a long period of time, for what reason exactly I don't know. I have no idea if the oothecae will end up hatching or not, as they were in the mail for a week and the weather has been pretty chilly, but I'm really hoping they will!

Anyway, I took some pictures of their enclosure and of the oothecae themselves, here they are!

The enclosure

The oothecae

Now, the oothecae are a bit shriveled and dimpled, which in other species suggests the oothecae are duds, however apparently this is a normal feature of this species' oothecae, according to this site here.

Fingers crossed the oothecae end up hatching, I'll definitely try taking some pictures of the hatchlings if they do!

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Lastly, I wanted to give you guys a small update on my Parcoblatta zebra. They are doing pretty well, the nymphs my original adults produced have already matured and are reproducing themselves, so it looks like I'll have a sizable colony before long! :)

Here are some pictures of an adult female:

This species is definitely a pretty one, and I am very glad to have some in my collection!

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

Jerusalem Cricket Eggs!!!

Last Sunday, I checked on one of my two mated female JCs, Sam, and found a egg on the surface! It seemed rather freshly laid, and I searched the whole enclosure for more, however there were no other eggs, so I assume the female will be laying more soon.

Finding an egg in Sam's enclosure made me check my other mated female's enclosure (Ripper), as well, and boy am I glad I did! Deep down near the bottom of the enclosure, I found 12 eggs close together in the substrate. She probably laid them in a chamber rather than loosely in the substrate, however, since I dumped the substrate from her enclosure into another container while looking for the eggs, I was unable to observe how the eggs were originally laid.

So now I have 13 eggs total, one from Sam and twelve from Ripper, and Sam should lay more soon. I talked with David Weissman, the leading expert on all things Stenopelmatidae, about the eggs, and he mentioned that females likely lay more than one clutch of eggs in their lifetime, so Ripper may lay another clutch of eggs before she dies, which would be great! He also said that since these individuals were collected from Southern California, the eggs should hatch within a month, and the resulting nymphs should take two years to reach maturity.

I have separated all the eggs and put them in their own little containers, they are all buried in moist coconut fiber, hopefully they will hatch and hopefully I can rear the resulting nymphs!

Here are some pictures of Ripper's eggs before I separated them all:

I am very excited about this recent development, and I really hope the eggs end up hatching! Not many people have gotten eggs from Jerusalem crickets, just Smokehound714 on Arachnoboards, David Weissman and myself I'm pretty sure!

Anyways, that's it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll see you all soon! :)

A Few Roach Updates

So for several months I've noticed that one of the "Parcoblatta lata" nymphs I received from Nathaniel Long looked a little different than the others. Instead of the normal reddish brown with dark brown stripes that most nymphs of that species sport, this individual was solid black. The little guy matured recently and, as I suspected, it turned out to be a stray Parcoblatta pennsylvanica male.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any other P.pennsylvanica nymphs in the enclosure, so this guy is out of luck when it comes to mating.

Here are some pictures I took of him:

It's a shame I have no female for him, would have been great to breed this species in addition to my other Parcoblatta.

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My Polyphaga saussurei are doing well, got a few pictures of the two adult females together, this species is so calm when handled and make great photo subjects, so I photograph them often.

Here they are on my hand:

Can't wait until their oothecae hatch! :)

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Also, a couple of days ago I sold off all my Gromphadorhina and Blaberus hybrids, as they were both taking up quite a bit of space and I had lost interest in them, plus I was pretty allergic to the hissers. I decided I'd rather make room for invertebrates that I really want instead of keeping ones that I have little interest in, so I sold them off. Just thought I'd let you guys know, in case you were wondering why their names have disappeared from the list of my currently cultured invertebrates.

Anyways, that's gonna be it for today, there have been some recent, exciting developments here in my collection, so stay tuned for some interesting stuff! I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all soon! :)

Baby Roaches! (or Therea Thursday, Sorta)

A couple weeks ago my female Blaberus sp. "Venezuela" gave birth to a 20 or so nymphs, which are all doing pretty well. I am glad that I have had success with this species, as it is my favorite Blaberus I've kept by far.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs, which look a lot like my Blaberus atropos nymphs:

Hopefully they'll reach adulthood with no problems. :)

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All of my Corydidarum pygmaea babies have molted and now like to hang around the lid and by the food bowl, which worries me just a little bit. According to "For the Love of Cockroaches", too much or too little moisture can affect how much the nymphs climb, so I'm a bit worried that the humidity levels in the enclosure are not to their liking.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the little cuties:

I really hope this species continues to do well for me, I really love these guys, and really all of the Perisphaerinae!

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I got a request to do an update on my Therea species, and to be honest, this update is a bit overdue.

First let's start with my T.olegrandjeani. All three of the newer adult females are still alive and are laying oothecae, and the offspring my previous adults produced are getting bigger.
Here are some pictures of my larger T.olegrandjeani nymphs:

My T.petiveriana females are also still alive and pumping out oothecae, and some of their oothecae have already hatched, and some of the resulting nymphs have molted a couple times.
Here are some pics of the nymphs:

And lastly, my T.regularis have reproduced as well. I never posted this, but my first adult male died quite a while back, but the other four nymphs matured into another male and three females, one of which has passed away, the other two are still alive and laying oothecae though.
Anyway, here are some pictures of some newborn nymphs:

I'm happy I've been able to breed all three species successfully, and I hope they continue to do well in my care!

Anyway, that's gonna do it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all soon! :)

Rhabdoblatta formosana and Panhclora sp. "White" Updates

The Panchlora sp. "White" nymphs are doing very well, however they are growing at somewhat staggered rates, which hopefully won't be too much of a problem when I am trying to mate them as they get older. A couple of the nymphs are gaining some more color now, rather than the pale yellow the younger nymphs sport, these two are more of a light brown color.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs I took today, (the flash makes the large nymph look brighter in the last three pics than it is in reality FYI):

I'm glad these nymphs seem to be doing well in my care, I believe shipping stress may have been the reason my adults did not fare well, hopefully once these guys grow up they will be much hardier than my original individuals.

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My Rhabdoblatta formosana colony is doing well, they are pretty sensitive to a buildup of dead bodies, (apparently the same is true for Epilampra maya), however the Porcellio scaber and Alphitobius diaperinus I have put in their enclosure have been doing a good job at eating the dead bodies, and so far show no signs of stressing the roaches out, (I will be keeping an eye out for the A.diaperinus though, don't want their numbers getting too high).

Here are some pictures I took of them a couple days ago:

This species has proven to be fast growing, highly prolific and easy to rear, however their sensitivity to their own dead and filth can make them a challenge to keep, especially if you don't use clean up crews.

Anyway, that's gonna do it for today, I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all next time! :)

Happy 2017!! (Corydidarum pygmaea and Parcoblatta americana Updates)

Happy new year everybody, I hope you all had a great holiday season, I know I did! Most of my roaches are doing rather well, and I am particularly excited to announce the birth of my first litter of Corydidarum pygmaea! I've been waiting patiently for offspring from this species, and I very happy that I have bred them successfully!

I have moved them to a larger enclosure, as their old enclosure was quite small, and while moving them I was able to get some pictures of the babies, here they are:

I believe there were 8-9 nymphs in this litter, and this was from only one of the females, I'm still waiting on the other to give birth. Hopefully I'll be able to rear them all to adulthood and keep my culture going, this is truly one of the most unique and interesting roach species available in the hobby!

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I have noticed something interesting is happening in my Parcoblatta americana enclosure, two males in my culture have matured and are very dark in color compared to their brothers.

My strain of this species usually only has males that are orange in color, so it's strange that some of them are coming out dark now. While they aren't as dark colored as some California P.americana strains, they are still very different looking from my normal males.

Here are some pictures of them:

I wonder if this is a color morph that could be selectively bred or not, would definitely be interesting to see if I could isolate this coloration, I may have to try doing so.

Anyway, that's gonna be it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope everyone has a great 2017! :)