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stanislas

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Everything posted by stanislas

  1. I provided heating with a heating mat at the back of the glass enclosure. So at least for there was gradient. They didn't show a preference. However the whole substrate was quite moist. They did however reside mainly on the drier pieces of bark. The latter did me thinking of excess moisture. That combined with little ventilation allowed fungus growth. So I guess that did them in Well, it's not that they walk around restlessly. Rather nibbling on pieces of bark and fruit and after that getting back to their hiding places. They also do not climb the glass. They seem quite relaxed, but moving around slowly. I make time-lapses with 1 minute intervals, so that makes them look fast. In reality it would be very boring... And the one getting on a leave was the one dying. In fact now they have better ventilation, they are more active. I have the impression that they were rather inactive due to bad circumstances and staying on the dryer parts of the enclosure. Nicolas has a similar experience. He also had some dying and considers it also due to keeping them too moist. They fare better for him with less humidity, at least that's what I understood. Perhaps there is a difference in habitat niche between Lanxoblatta and Schizopilia? Also interesting that the Lanxoblatta prefer vertical surfaces, something the Schizopilia definately do not.
  2. They have all kinds of bark. Plenty of it is rather smooth. They don't seem to be very picky when it comes to the bark types. They also walk around on the bottom. And they haven't shown any preference for vertical positions. In fact they mostly reside under bark laying on the substrate or on top of another bark piece. At night they become quite active and walk over the bottom as well as over the bark pieces. But not in a stressed way, although the adults seem to have active interactions. Probably the males clashing or courting the females? @Hisserdude: How humid do you keep your roaches? In particular the bark roaches?
  3. A few days ago two of my Schizopilia fissicollis nymphes died unexpectantly. One just sat on top of a leave, the other on top of a piece of wood. Not moving.... Which made me suspicious. I have their death on camera (time-lapse). They have been moving around in the hours prior to they demise. Eating, walking, and then slowed down, stopped walking and after a few hours stopped moving altogether. So that made me consider that the condition in their enclosure wasn't, lets say 'optimal' I assumed they preferred a hot, humid environment with a lot of bark, and a substrate with dried leaves. When I took out all roaches and did a thorough overhaul of the terrarium, there was a lot of fungi in the substrate and the wood tended to rot at the fringes... no good. The new setup consists of slightly moist coco peat and a lot of bark pieces on top. I provided better ventilation as well to reduce air stagnation. Basically I will try the classic 'moist corner' setup. Water is provided through fruit and agar blocks. In any case, the roaches are now much more active at night and walk over the whole area. They eat well (fruit and a leaves/grasshoppers/fish food paste smeared on bark). Keeping my fingers crossed! Do other people have similar experiences with keeping their roaches too humid and/or with too little ventilation? In particular with rainforest species? How did you solve it? Is moisture a real problem for roaches?
  4. For some background regarding the expedition these roaches came from: http://www.lemonde.fr/grands-formats/visuel/2015/02/27/objectif-mitaraka-destination-terra-incognita_4582595_4497053.html http://www.lemonde.fr/grands-formats/visuel/2015/02/27/objectif-mitaraka-en-pleine-jungle-la-science-fait-son-nid_4584526_4497053.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/06/objectif-mitaraka-episode-3-l-arsenal-entomologique_4588663_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/13/objectif-mitaraka-episode-4-chasseurs-d-arbres_4593274_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/17/objectif-mitaraka-episode-5-le-maitre-de-la-brousse-capture_4594611_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/23/objectif-mitaraka-episode-6-les-tumuc-humac-les-montagnes-imaginaires_4595008_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/26/objectif-mitaraka-episode-7-des-ichtyologues-dans-la-jungle_4600654_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/03/28/objectif-mitaraka-episode-8-la-foret-revisitee_4602143_3244.html http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/visuel/2015/04/01/objectif-mitaraka-episode-9-la-fin-d-une-expedition_4606916_3244.html I think I would know where to start if one took me on such expedition.... Roach overload!
  5. They were collected in Mitaraka, French Guiana and send to Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. Nicolas Rousseaux (active here on the forum as well) obtained them from them in an agreement to return the adult specimen for the museum collection. http://www.laplaneterevisitee.org/en/219/home http://www.mnhn.fr/en/research-expertise/scientific-expeditions/our-planet-reviewed/guiana-2014-2015 Map, with Mitaraka at the bottom:
  6. A time lapse movies of their nightly activity. If you look careful, you can see one roach molting into adulthood and one nymph getting into the next instar.
  7. Third roach molted into adulthood! Seems like it's going fast here. I'm curious how long it will take to get babies...
  8. I came up with a new food idea: Grinded, dried partially decomposed oak leaves mixed with pulverized dried grasshoppers. Made a paste of that and put that on one of the bark pieces. At least some of the Schizopilia roaches seem to eat from it... I'll keep an eye on it to see how much they eat it. My Archimandrita tesselata roaches devoured at once when I presented it to them
  9. I noticed them eating from a piece of mandarin orange... They seem to do fine after all. I always have this feeling of uncertainty when I get a new species. It takes some time to know for sure that I'm on the right track and that I'm providing optimal conditions for them. As they are in a glass cage, I can observe them pretty well. I've made picture of their enclosure. At night it's red lightning, in the morning it switches to white and steadily increases light intensity during the day until noon.... A kind of natural light cycle, albeit with red nights.
  10. How much do they eat? And how activity do they display? My Schizopilia fissicollis roaches eat only small amounts of fish food and fruit. At least some individuals have done so, but not all. They mainly seem to nibble on the bark pieces. At the other hand, they don't move around much, so I guess that they are quite good at energy conservation. I guess I'm watching over them like a mother hen
  11. One can also see the translucent area in the pronotum above their head. I assume this helps them to see light - dark while keeping their head under it.
  12. Lo and behold, one of the nymphs molted into adult stage today! Not yet their final color...
  13. That's interesting! So it looks like they might need quality bark that is sufficiently softened by rotting? They eat from the underside? I've found that if I put fish food flakes on the bark, they are more likely to eat it. Now I'm experimenting with making a kind of fish food paste and smear that on some places to see if they eat it. But I will get some larger piece of bark that is more rotted to see if they eat from that the way the Lanxoblatta do.
  14. Nicolas (the very friendly guy I got them from) keeps them at 25C/77F with little ventilation. And he had (relatively smooth) pieces of bark on the bottom, under which they hide. Here in my enclosure, I've provided some wood with smooth bark vertically and horizontally placed. On the bottom there is composted leaves with whole dried leaves on top. So far they either stick on the wood (horizontal and vertical) or reside on the leaves at the bottom. They do walk around over the bottom, but prefer to stay on the dried leaves while doing so. They have eaten apple and fish food flakes. They haven't shown any interest in carrot. I'll try more types of fruit the coming week. I have them at 27C/81C at the moment in a 30x30x30 cm / 12/12/12 inch glass enclosure with half of the lid glass and the other half metal with ventilation mesh. I wish it would be easier to exchange roaches between the US and Europe!
  15. I saw pictures posted by Hisserdude of the Lanxoblatta roaches. They are indeed very similar. How do you keep the Lanxoblatta roaches? Temperature, food, housing?
  16. I'm very happy at the moment as I got 10 Schizopilia fissicollis nymphs today from Nicolas Rousseaux! They are beautiful (in my opinion at least)
  17. One of my Polyphaga obscura roaches was still active this morning, so I took the opportunity to make a photograph. A few seconds later she disappeared again (probably for days or longer). And as a bonus, she has an ootheca hanging at her abdomen (so finally babies, albeit somewhere in the not so near future)!
  18. I'm trying to contact Kyle to see if he is able to provide Arenivaga species and have then send to Europe. Or perhaps other sources? Or find someone willing to send ootheca to Europe?
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