Maarten..

Do you give a constant supply of water? I've had a roach colony (E. Posticus) which was going downhill until I gave them a supply of water. Since then they do all right. Those pallid roaches can be a pain in the @$$ sometimes. They're really neat looking but the little ones are really really small. I always prevent that they build up in numbers in my other colonies. Now I've got them in a plastic jar which is 100% escape proof.

No, I only have got my group for a couple of weeks. I was told all the animals were subadult so I didn't have much comparing to do. Now I have my first male adult. I did't know where to look for specifically to find adult females. Except for the hissers all my roaches are winged, so clearly noticeble when they've reached adulthood. I'll try to locate the difference. Now it's pretty clearly, looking at the picture above.

Is there a way to distinguish an adult female from a subadult one, other than size?

Nice picture! Is this a male from the batch of little ones of which you posted a picture earlier on the forum?

Thank you for the answers! They've already eaten carrots as well so I think they will be all fine. I've got the rotten wood idea from the site of member lucihormetica. Maybe he/she could give a bit more information?

I've got one: pesto. I've tossed a jar which was already a little bit moldy with the dubia's. Normally they are the waste bin for all food that is not eaten by the other roaches or the cat, and mold is no problem at all. The next day I've found about then dead roaches in the jar, and the amount of pesto was diminished but it's not totally eaten.

I've got a new species for some days, D. paulinoi. I've read that they need rotten wood. Do they eat it? They have readily accepted fish flakes up until now. Are there any food items it should certainly give? thx.

Mine don't accept dead dubia roaches which i've found in the dubia enclosure. When I cut a dubia in two halves these halves are devoured. They are supposed to even hunt down other insects but I have not yet witnessed this behaviour. They also drink a lot.

Sorry for the late response. I have very good experiences with fish flakes and give it to all my roaches. Some eat more of the stuff, others eat less. Posticus simply devour the flakes so I gave it al along. The colony only started to flourish when I insured the acces to a constant water supply. @ roachsmith: How's the colony going on nowadays?

The enclosure of my new group of E. chopardi. They are housed together with a couple of cave crickets.

Since I've seen them in real life, I have Archiblatta hoeveni on my wish list. Unfortunately these guys are very hard to find and pretty expensive. Also Blaberus giganteus seems pretty cool.

I did also have an apparently 500 little praying critters (S. lineola) which was a wee bit too much. Some kept escaping so I tossed 2 of them with my Blaptica dubia colony to get rid of some fruit flies (it was middle summer). I never nourished the little guys and it was not for long that only one remained. This one has grown and lived to adulthood and always lived in the roach colony. He even mated there with his girl. The only thing I did special was misting the cage now and then to let him drink. When he was really old I removed him so he could die in peace.

Well, I've got G. portentosa with mites and E. chopardi without mites (since yesterday). When I see a mite on the chopardis you guys will be the first to be informed. I also have mites in the cage of Gyna lurida. Those don't live always on the roaches, I see them just occasionally on a roach. They do eat the same food as the roaches I guess since I see them more often on the food. They are about the same size as the hisser mites but darker. They just appeared someday. Together with the specialist saliva information I may have jumped too quick to my own conclusion. (Yes, I've read this thread )

No, I didn't read that thread. After some search I managed to find my source of information again. http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/5466/index_2.html Since there are lots of different species of mites I don't think that it's impossible that the ones on the hissers and dwarf hissers are different. It's a coincidence that only since yesterday I've got chopardi as a new pet. I checked them out and they didn't have any mites on them.

I've read somewhere that the hisser mites feed on the hisser saliva. So it is a very specialised species and specialists mostly don't change feeding habits. I don't think they will thrive on the chopardis.

I keep my colony in a small terrarium with branches of dead oak leaves found in the fall. Gradually the leaves are ripped to the veins. I also keep a little log with them which I found at lumber jacking. The wood is rotten and excavated by ants. The roaches dig their way into the already present chambers by chewing on the rotten wood. They don't dig holes in the ground, but in the wood. I haven't seen behaviour like Matt saw so far, but I've kept my colony only for a few months now.

Some of my Gyna lurida eating a piece of apple. You can clearly see the size difference between the small males and females. No yellow ones unfortunately.

The variation in coloration is awesome. A real beauty!

Can you see them more often? I might try that too. What plants did you use? And don't the roaches dig them up, or nibble from them?

I've got a kind of Tenodera mantids as pets, but I'm not sure about the exact species. In Belgium its quite rare and the person who sold them to me just knew to mention Tenodera sp. If they're ressemblent to the one living in America, the species is Tenodera aridifolia sinensis. I suspect it's that one, though I'm not sure.

If Orange heads are a synonyme for Eublaberus posticus then I may have a possible cure. I bought a colony which was not very active. The nymphs grew up to adulthood so I thought they were doing okay. I had some newborn nymphs but not even enough to sustain the colony. After some experimenting I tried a bird cage bottle in which I stuffed some paper tissues to prevent nymphs from drowning. Since then my colony is active and I can see regularly new born nymphs. I can also see the water level diminish and the roaches do actively drink. I was hoping that the wing biting would diminish but unfortunately it is as bad as before.

I assume that in Phoetalia pallida, thick specimens are the females. The abdomen comes slightly further than their wings. The males are more slender and their wings fully cover the abdomen. This is just my own observation. I can't promise to make some pictures because these roaches are very fast and my digital camera was bought a few years B.C.

Do you mean they can set up new colonies in the house, so that it is a probable pest species?

It's strange why some people like football and other like baseball. It's the same with roaches, some people like them, and a lot of people don't.

Let me know when you are coming, maybe we can exchange some stuff.