Monday, September 12, 2022

Macropanesthia Mating & New Arenivaga!

September Alan Shipment Pt. 2/2
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Well, one of my female Macropanesthia rhinoceros has matured, and the other is a subadult... So, I really needed a male to mate them and make some babies. Thankfully, Alan came to the rescue by loaning me his male, (in exchange for some of the babies he sires), so now my childhood dream of breeding this species is starting to take form! 😁

Within 15 minutes of being thrown in with my females, I witnessed him mating with my mature gal... Little guy was eager to get to work! 😆






I'm thrilled I've gotten this far with this, the OG holy grail of the roach hobby, hopefully next year I'll get babies from my females! 🤞 😊

Lastly, Alan sent me a nice starter culture of Arenivaga cf. tenax "Socorro, TX". This strain was collected quite close to where the A.cf.tenax "Dell City" I used to breed came from, a strain that's unfortunately since been lost to culture... 😢 But these are the next best thing and almost identical to the "Dell City" strain in appearance, so I'm very happy to have this species back in my collection. 😁

I have my dozen or so nymphs housed in a well ventilated setup with an inch or or so of coconut fiber as the substrate. I'm keep a third of the substrate humid, the rest bone dry in a horizontal humidity gradient. I've topped the substrate with crushed hardwood leaf litter, and in addition to that I'll be feeding them dog food regularly. I'm keeping them at around 75F°. 

Here are some pictures of the nymphs:











They are so cute, and quite ornately patterned. 😁 Can't wait until they mature, hopefully they'll breed as well for me as the "Dell City" strain did!

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks again to Alan for providing me with all these awesome invertebrates! 😁 Hopefully you all enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you folks next time! 😉

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