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stanislas

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Everything posted by stanislas

  1. Managed to take some better pictures, couldn't withhold these...
  2. Every fall, just when the leaves have dropped, I visit the nearby forest to collect fallen oak leaves. I sterilize them in a microwave oven, dry them and put the in vacuum bags. That way I have fresh, ready to use leaves. I do add then to the enclosure of most of my species, but most only nibble at them (Therea bernhardti, Lucihormetica verrucosa, several Polyphaga species). However, some actually eat a lot of these leaves: Archimandrita tesselata and Hemiblabera tenebricosa, for example. Most of my species prefer the leaves to be a bit more decayed. Which will happen anyway if the leaves stay moist. But for those, I often go back to the forest after a while, when the leaves on the ground have started to rot and decay. So yes, roaches do fine on oak leaves. In my experience, some prefer them freshly dropped leaves, other prefer more decayed leaves.
  3. I feed my 20 roach colonies about 2-3 times / week. It includes misting, replacing fruit/carrots, adding some water to corners if needed etc. Some I take a daily look at and do maintenance when needed (Pseudoglomeris magnifica and Schizopilia fissicollis for example due to their high investment costs and being hard to get). Others I tend to be more careless about, as they can deal better with scarcity, like the Polyphaga species I keep.
  4. I have a well established colony of this species. At first I kept them too moist. I almost lost the colony at that time. After that I cranked up the temperature and start keeping them nearly bone dry. Some misting every few days, sometimes a bit of water of water in a corner. Carrots, fish food, slices of apple... Cocopeat and crushed dried oak leaves. And that made the colony thrive. I now have taken away the heat source and I keep them at room temperature. They do great. So my conclusion is that these critters prefer a rather dry habitat with occasional mistings. Their reproduction accelerates with higher temperatures, but room temperature (and likely below that) works fine.
  5. Today I saw a female Pseudoglomeris magnifica roach walking on the front glass. And upon close inspection I saw, much to my delight, three small nymphs clinging between their mother's legs. (picture is rather dull, due to the anti-reflection cross-polarization filters I had on my flash). I'm very happy with this!
  6. There is a roach with ooth in the video I posted above, around 1:00. They are not very tiny (compared to the adults that is).
  7. Finally got these roaches as well. They are still quite small, so it will take time to see adults. @Manuel_P: Have your roaches reached adulthood? Babies already? The adults cut their own wings. Have you seen that in your's?
  8. They indeed prefer a dry and warm enclosure. I almost lost them when I kept them more moist. They do like carrots and fish food and an occasional misting. That combined with some heating seems to do the trick here. I keep their substrate bone dry.
  9. I always peel fruits before I give them to the roaches... Or when possible use those from my own garden. @Xenoblatta: these roaches died after eating contaminated fruits?
  10. Most likely it contains permethrin. That stuff is quite persistent. I would put it in a washing machine with sodium carbonate instead of detergent and wash it a high temperature. Perhaps that will do, as permethrin hydrolyses under alkaline conditions. Another option is the combination of water and light... but that might take time. Even then, I would be reluctant to use it. Considering the fact that permethrin treated clothing can outlast many washing cycles....
  11. Look like a kind of holly. I know you can make tea from young leaves and the leaves are supposed to be non-toxic for humans... but how that will work out for roaches? I have no idea. I wouldn't try it unless someone here has positive experience with these, or if you are willing to subject you roaches to an experiment. In the latter case, keep us updated. And I would put by bet on 'they will be fine'.
  12. I checked it, and I can only conclude that it's the natural color of the palps.
  13. Hyporhicnoda reflexa (Venezuela) female (wingless) and male:
  14. You should ask Nicolas Rousseaux (http://www.roachforum.com/index.php?/profile/3063-nicolas-rousseaux/). I've seen them in his collection when I visited him (or at least something like that).
  15. I'm not aware of articles mentioning this, although I suppose I'm not the first to notice this. But none the less, it's a remarkable change in circadian rhythm. It also reflects the different survival strategy followed in nymphs (hide and not been seen) vs adults (look like a nasty Anthia sexguttata beetle).
  16. After collecting cockroach activity in my collection for more than a year now, I decided to make some graphs. Each graph is made up of 505056 datapoints (measurement every 10 seconds for 2 months). X-axis: hour of the day Y-Axis: Activity level and light level in the enclosure. Among the most interesting ones are the Therea bernhardti graphs. There you can see how the nymphs are active during the night, in contrast to the day-active adults.
  17. I managed to make a video of one of the nymphs eating bee pollen:
  18. I replaced the substrate with pure coco coir. Since then, no mold had been present. The lid on the enclosure I replaces as well with one full of ventilation holes. Food is always on a dry place, high above the substrate and replaced every few day. I always make sure it stays dry (also to prevent mites). Moist food (citrus fruit, apple etc.). Is also place on a dry section, away from the dry food. Moisture is provided with keeping the substrate moist by wetting one corned when needed. Misting is provided every few day. Since these changes, the mold has gone away and the roaches seem to do fine. No losses since... So with hindsight I think stagnant air with mold present in the substrate did those two roaches in.
  19. Could very well be the case. The enclosure wasn't ventilated well enough and there was certainly too much mold present. Now the ventilation is better and the temperature a bit lower, they seem to do much better.
  20. Thanks! That explains a lot! The adults last year were indeed short lived. The nymphs I had, overwintered without growing much. I suspect these will soon become adults. Now the big question will be: Does Ectobius silvestris roaches have a one or a two year life cycle? Deducing from the google link/article compared to my observations, I guess it will be two years. As the nymphs did overwinter well here (I kept them cool during winter). This will imply that my nymphs will mature soon, live for about 5 months months and then my enclosure will be empty until (only ootheca) for a year I guess I need to catch a second generation in fall to have these roaches on display the whole year round. Adapting the figure from the article, it will give me this:
  21. It has been a bumpy road with these fellows. No ootheca last year (2017). Somehow I did not manage to find the right conditions and food. I believe I kept them too moist at first. I tried feeding powdered fish food, honey, fruits, vegetables, yeast, powdered oak leaves etc. But it hasn't been clear to me what they like to eat. And so the colony dwindled... With fall nearing I caught some more nymphs to supplement the lost roaches. After that I added more forest substrate and crushed leaves and kept the enclosure substantial dryer. As result no more losses. On the food front I decided to try something else: bee pollen. That stuff arrived today. I crushed the pollen pellets to powder and put that in the enclosure. Low and behold, they started eating the stuff. While it's still early on in this experiment, at least my hopes have raised that I might one day be able to get a thriving colony of this (local) species (keeping my fingers crossed)!
  22. Hopefully they do get a foothold into the US roach hobby. So far mine seem to grow fast. Which makes me happy.
  23. Pseudoglomerus... Well the name makes sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomeris Now trying to get a copy of that article....
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