Maarten..

Right now, I have about 15 adults and some numphs. I bought 20 of them a couple of months ago. I don't keep the grandjeani-species. I'm starting to have an overcrowding problem.

All right, some pictures. Adult male Adult male Adult female. Notice the short antennae and the abdomen that is visible from beneath the wings. Adult female Together, the size difference is clearly noticeable. A nymph which has had a photoshop treatment A trio, the female is above in the photo.

I wanted to take a picture of the differences of males and females, but my girl had better things to do, so I didn't disturb them. (the one on top is the female) Of course, I'm 100% certain now that I have different sexes.

I've kept G. portentosa and B. dubia and one S. lineola praying mantis together for two years(the mantis for 8 months). This went well but in the end the dubias outgrew the hissers. The mantis preferred the dubias but these guys breed pretty well. Eventually I saw less and less hissers so I seperated them last fall. Now my number of hissers is rising again. I think that if you keep populations in check, make a lot of hiding spaces and keep them well nourished in different sites in the cage things must work out for two species, which are not similar but thrive in the same environmentally conditions.

Thanks for the reactions! It's a coincidence, but I think just yesterday a female has molted to adulthood. In that case I have about 10 males and 1 female (poor girl). She was not yet fully hardened when I went asleep so no pictures yet, but I'll post them as asap.

Hi all, some pictures of my Therea petiveriana adults. I managed to take care of them since they were about 6 mm, so the next step is to breed them. I've read in the Allpet roaches book that the males and females can be sexed with the comparison of the antennae. I don't succeed in telling the two sexes apart. Can somebody judge by these photo's that I have two different sexes? I know it's not easy, but I've learned the hard way that they can be very fast and run up vertical plastic surfaces like hell, so first I take my chances this way. Enjoy the pics ...

Do you live in Europe? I know an adres in Holland.

Are you certain she's subadult? After molting they are shorter and wider. After feeding for a couple of days the abdomen gets more elongated. So the roach still has to 'grow'.

Impressive list!! Unfortunately I haven't got any animal that you don't have already. I will keep an eye out for the add listing.

As far as I know the name Blaberus craniifer is quickly (mis)used at the dutch speaking forum where I use to hang out. My best guess is that it's probably some hybrid. It is the last of it's kind so there's no more danger for (more) hybridisation. The person who possesses it is a roach enthousiastic, but not so at the level to hunt down new and very rare roaches. I don't know of any proof that the only Blaberus with hairs on the wings is craniifer. Actually the information about hairs on the wings of cockroaches is known to me for only a couple of days. I leave the hardcore evidence to the scientists. Actually the wings were environmentally adapted, with some scissors. A small piece has been cut of the wings so it was possible to get a closer look for the possibility of hairs.

Maybe it's possible they stay indoors in winter and venture outside during the warm summer months? I know I do.

The picture is taken in California

On a dutch speaking forum some guys and I were discussing the whole craniifer-black wing-hair on the wing- situation. Somebody posted a picture of a roach in his possession. Does anybody know which species? Don't matter about the weird looking wings. He cut off a piece of the wing to place it on the computer scanner in order to identify the presence of hairs. There were no hairs. Here can you find the picture. The macro picture of the wings is to be found on the previous page.

Wow, those are really beautifull!! Hard to keep? Suddenly I remember, I do live in Europe! If they are for sale some time, I'm definately interested.

I would guess that the cicade was just a left over. The wings were not fully developed and in that stage these animals live underground. They climb onto the trunk of a tree to shed their last skin and recieve fully developed wings. So a cicade above ground, without wings is only there for a very brief period in time. Since the skin is cracked open, just as a cicade which has molted (beautifully illustrated in the last picture) it's very likely that just the remaining exoskeleton makes dinner for the roach. On the other hand, it also looks like there is still some material inside the cicade so maybe the roach was enjoying full dinner. On holidays in the south of France I've seen plenty of those abandoned skins, but none with a cicade still inside, and certainly not one with a cockroach nibbling on it. Lucky devil

I've got 13 species, and cave crickets, no other animals. My girlfriend has got a cat and he demands more work and certainly more money than the roaches. I guess 59 different species is still ok, more species is a bit over the top.

Not these roaches, don't worry about it! Other insects, like grashoppers and butterflies for instance, are much mure susceptible. Whilst inbreeding they grow smaller with less and less offspring.

I guess this bugger hasn't got the ability anymore to stain your hand brown? Albinos are very rare among arthropods, so this is pretty cool!! I have never heard of an albino insect anyways.

The nymphs are barely visible, since they live almost entirely burrowed. I give food in a low dish so they can't nibble from the underside of the food and have to climb in it to eat which increases visibility. They are fond of fish flakes so when I add some in their dish the floor starts to move, quite spectacular. The adults are almost always visible, they even fly in and enclosure of 20 x 20 x 20 cm. The trick with roaches is often that you need a lot of them to see them. I started with 20 nymphs and the first year my terrarium was just a pile of leaves. When I left food in it, the next day some nibbling was shown and that was about it. After a year or so, I could see more and more signs of life. Now they are always visible.

Interesting indeed, do you have more lecture on the subject?

Maybe you could try keeping roaches, never had any nightmares because of them.

Don't worry, within a couple of months you will see the first babies, provided the oothecae is fertilized. Blaptica dubia is ovoviviparious. This means that they produce eggs, but instead of laying them, like birds, they keep them in a pouch, like kangooroo's. This has the advantage that factors like humidity and temperature are more stable for the eggs. When the babies emerge from their eggs, they emerge from their mother in the same time. The orange worm you saw is the oothecae, a cluster of several eggs, which is transferred from the ovaries to the pouch.

Sorry for my late reaction. I've seen both the characteristics (valves and head color) and wanted to take a pic. Unfortunately I didn't succeed in catching a nymph since they are very fast. I didn't want to disturb the colony too much. These two were easily collected by picking up a branch on which they clinged. Adult female Adult female close up Adult male

Is that the actual cage? Or do they get some shelter normally? I've kept them pretty barren for a while, but suffered from a series of bad last skin sheds. Now they are housed bigger with plenty more hiding places and now they seem to do fine. Unfortunately I can't see them as often as before.

I actually started with one little box as feeders. There was only one male adult and a buch of very skinny nymphs in all sizes. It took me more than a year to get the first 100 critters. After that, the rest was easy and the colony grew exponentially. Now, we are three years later and I've got thousands without adding fresh blood.