crepsis

Ah ha! I've found it. The "black wing" form IS the true wild form of the species. Read post #11 by Orin under the Blaberus craniifer thread. Per him, it's a non-variable wild coloration. http://www.bidabug.org/Forum/index.php?showtopic=631 I'm excited, because I just got my B. craniifer nymphs yesterday afternoon!

Áron, I've read that the wild form of B. craniifer is the "black wing" form. (Please correct me if I'm wrong...)

The six spots are E. distanti, right? I was looking at those, but decided on B. craniifer to start with, all the pictures I've seen, I've really liked the six spots. Maybe they'll be the next one's I get . Can you post pics? I need to get a camera of my own, or borrow my sisters.... PS I just got my nymphs today, they're so cute!

Hey Max, I'm new to keeping roaches and should be having a delivery coming on Wednesday!!! Yay!!! Anyway, welcome!

No idea, for sure, but I remember reading that calcium was not something that insects require, and if they get too much of it, it could be bad... Please if you know something different, correct me...

So, after seeing several pictures of B. craniifer, I've come up with a question that I hope someone can answer either definitively or through experience (I'm betting Orin has an answer for me!). I've noticed that the pronotum design varies from picture to picture, namely the shape of the "mouth" and "teeth" of the "face" on the pronotum. Other things that seem to vary a bit are the clear patches on the upper part of the wings (placement and size and outline shape), the width of the "nose" and "eyes", and their placement in relation to the mouth (but only slightly different in some pictures). My question is this: Do individuals in a colony tend to show this variation, or are each of the individual's pronotum design basically homogenized throughout a culture? Or, since most of the pictures that I have seen most likely come from the same original source of B. craniifer, if a colony only displays a similar design on each individual, does the design on a population's pronotums slowly change (I guess through genetic drift) as the colony/culture ages? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. I've just sent away for some B. craniifer nymphs, and I'm curious as to what to expect when my colony starts to take off.

Hey Zephyr, so did you seperate out the different species, and different percentages of how effective (based on ability to climb up past the barrier) each barrier substance was on those species?

Hey, on the bidabug auction site, the icon for the "other live bugs" has a picture of the "roly poly" bug with the yellow spots I was talking about! How weird is that! Is that just an Armadillium vulgare, or is that some other species? http://www.bidabug.org/auction/xcAuction.asp Orin, those Ligia pallasii that you added the link to are really cool!

Áron, I look forward to your results!

So cool! Nice pics Javier...thanks for posting them. I'm about to order some B. craniifer nymphs, and the pic you posted, made me excited about them! Chris

Cool thanks! ....Hey wait a second, is Oscillitoria 'Black Hair Algae'? If so, yuck! Even goldfish (or many fish) won't eat that! Just kidding, let me know how it goes. Like I said, I'm planning on doing a little test myself when I get my nymphs...I'll probably start out with spirulina, just because it's easier to find here powdered, than chlorella (for my shakes).

OMG! I just did a lookup on 'giant isopods' in google! There's this picture of someone holding a giant undersea (distant) relative of the ones used as clean-up crews in our vivariums, and it's like a foot long! All I can say is Wow!

I'm fairly certain they more closely resemble the first photo (so I guess they are isopods ), but the yellow spots on the shell were about like the middle two stripes on the second one, although the color was also more of a light/bright 'lemon' yellow. I also remember them being very large and very hard-shelled for a roly-poly, and when unrolled and walking, were much more rounded/domed than the smaller ones. I also remember that they took much longer to unroll than the plain gray ones, when held. It would be interesting to find those particular ones again. Maybe next spring I'll see if I can find some around here in Colorado. Those described above were at the base of the Bighorn Mountains, in Wyoming (USA), but the same type can probably be found all over. It's been a long time since I turned over a log or stone and paid attention to them.

Are isopods roly poly (pill, sow etc) bugs? I remember these large roly-poly bugs that were two or three times as big as the usual ones you see around commonly, they were light to medium grey, very glossy, had hard shells, rolled into perfect spheres, and had two or three yellow spots on just about each segment of their body. Are these the same things, or are they something else?

I'm pretty sure that you can 'refresh' the silica gel, by baking it in the oven at a relatively low setting (maybe like 250 degrees F) for a while (just guessing but like 30 minutes). Oh, btw, you may want to remove it from the baggies it comes in before you 'refresh' it.

Get some "silica gel" from the florist or wherever they have it locally. After you've pinnedthe insect to a piece of card, put the card in an airtight container with the silica gel for as long as it takes...a couple of days, probably, at the most. Silica gel comes in a powdered/crystallized/flaked form, they used to sell it at walmart in the crafts section years ago, in a cylindrical container. It's the same thing that comes in a tiny little bag that says "dessicant - do not ingest" in a number of products...the first that comes to mind is shoes.

Awesome! I had never heard that before, good to know, thanks! Monkey biscuits are about the same protein content of dog food anyway, from what I've researched. Zupreem monkey chow is like $2.50 here, per gallon ziplock bag, from the local pet store!

Well, at some point, I'm planning on ordering either one or the other or both in bulk to add to the shake I have every day before work. When I get my nymphs, I'll give them some to see if they will eat it, and I'll report back and let ya know if they'll even touch it.

Do you mean the flourescent reef tank type moon lights? I did a lookup for moon lights and that's all I could come up with. An incandescent hood sounds like a good idea, and relatively inexpensive, escpecially if the UTH (that I already stuck to the bottom of the tank grrr!) doesn't provide enough heat. I just realized that I could also use red bulbs too, since insects can't see the red end of the spectrum (or can they?). I already know that I'm going to need something to boost the humidity level within the tank itself...I was planning on just getting a cheap piece of glass cut to size to fit inside the lip of the aquarium lid, underneath the screen top, but an incandescent hood would also take care of that too, I guess.

Hey there, I was just wondering if anyone has tried feeding their roaches spirulina (blue-green algae) or chlorella (green algae)? They both are extremely high in protein, balanced in fats, fiber, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. I've read different websites where people say that when they feed their roaches a nutritious diet, they have higher reproduction rates, and just seem healthier all-around. I was thinking if this is true, than using one of these algaes as a supplement to the staple diet could be a very good thing. Any thoughts on this?

I think that sounds like a good idea too, but don't Blaberus spp. do better with less light? I've sort of got my mind set on B. craniifer... I like a challenge.

Well, anyyywayyys... I bought a 10 gallon tank instead (I wanted to start out with the 5 and move up, oh well ) , a really cool metal mesh lid that folds in the middle (from left to right or right to left), and the 30-40 gallon size Zloomed UTH (covers about 2/3's of the tank floor). Just need to get some sort of substrate to put on top of the sand layer and at least one or two pieces of wood/silk plants to get started before I order nymphs. (Yay!) I figure I can just put the food directly on the sand, and either spray the humid side of the tank often or make a gravity style waterer initially. The waterer that I made for my crickets out of a prescription bottle, a cotton round pad, and the bottom of a styrofoam cup, works really well for them, and I imagine it will work just as well for the babies.

I have no experience feeding leaves yet, however, I would like to add my two cents about what I would do with leaves . I would imagine that if you have a pressure cooker (everyone in my family has always had one, including myself) you could basically "autoclave" the dry (or fresh) leaves with the pressure cooker. I would carefully, so as not to break them, put the leaves in a vegetable steamer basket so they weren't submerged in water, and steam at around 15 lbs for like 20-30 minutes. It would sterilize, keep them moist, and possibly make them easier to digest (cooking makes food easier to digest for us!). Any leftover, could be placed in a freezer bag to be kept sterile. Just my thoughts on what I would do if I decide to feed leaves. It's not much different than what you would do if you're preparing different substrates for cultivating mushrooms on (wood, straw, grain, etc).

Hey Amelia! I'm Chris, I'm in the same boat you are! I just started reading and learning more and more about keeping roaches as pets, and the more I read, the more fascinated I am and excited I get. Ever since I was little, I've always been fascinated with anything alive, always used to (and even some now!) have pet tarantulas, bugs, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, plants...you name it! I plan on my starter colony being Blaberus craniifer (Death's Head Roach, True Death's Head Roach, Black-Winged Death's Head Roach etc) . Right now I'm making a plan for the display vivarium that I'm going to set up, and as soon as my finances agree with me and I have the basic setup in hand (I'm guessing by the end of next week) I'm going to order some nymphs. Yay! Good luck to you! Oh, btw, the spider you mention, might have been a Wolf spider. I used to see and catch these really cool Wolf spiders, in Wyoming, when I was growing up. They looked just like a miniature tarantula, thick body and legs, and hairy, just like a tarantula...but about the size of a dollar coin. Once, according to my mom (I don't remember this), I caught a Wolf spider that must have had an egg sac, because the next day, inside the bowl it was in, there was all sorts of baby spiders all over the place!

That's cool Zephyr, I like that story. Nice photos in your other post too! How long have you been keeping them? Are they primarily pets?