Blattodea313

Here is a link to my setup from what it looked like a year ago: https://www.dropbox....22 12.23.33.jpg

It looks basically the same now except that the umbrella plant is now so big that it almost won't fit in the terrarium.

I have had Gyna lurida in a planted enclosure for about a year and a half now. The nymphs you never see except when they come up to feed, but the adults are both day and night active. They fly all over the enclosure and like to bask on the plants I have in the enclosure. They don't bother the roots and all the plants I have in the terrarium have been very healthy. The enclosure is 18in by 18in by 24in. The only concern I have for putting G. lurida in your enclosure is the type of enclosure it is. Critter Keepers (most of them) have that annoying lid that you have to try and get off to maintain the cage. This could be a problem since the Gyna lurida will find the highest part to sit at. This includes the screen top and any plants/decor that is close to the top of the terrarium. I would definitely NOT recommend Gyna lurida if you are going for the critter keeper setup.

I have about 16 male hissers living together and I almost never see them fighting. At first, they fought to claim territory in the enclosure, but after a week or so they calmed down.

Do they grow a lot slower than the regular Gyna lurida? I know I waited a long time for some G. lurida nymphs about size of the end of a pencil to grow to maturity.

Looks like the leftover sausage will be going into the trash can then .... lol

If you have some woods near your house you could throw the leftover food there. I have a small forest next to my house that I throw all my organic leftovers into. They don't last a day out there either!

How do you have your enclosure set up? I keep mine with coconut fiber and some cork for cover. They don't have to have leaves. They will eat cat food and fruit/vegetables just fine. It couldn't hurt to get some oak leaves or maple leaves and put them on top of the substrate though. They stay underground almost 24/7, so they are a good species to keep with ground dwelling ones like the dubia or hissers or other species. I have my horseshoes in with some Gyna lurida. They get along fine.

I think LLLReptile sells large cork flats for $24 for 3. I've ordered several things from them, and they are a really good company. Really easy to contact if you have any problems with your order. There is shipping on the cork though. I would try Amazon too. They put stuff on sale sometimes. Maybe you could get a large piece when they put it on sale. Petsmart sells large cork rounds. Those can be cut into 3 smaller cork flats. I found that technique very useful when I had a bunch of hissers. Good luck finding some cheap!

I wish I had the cork bark for my roaches... I would probably save more money in the long run

It is quite expensive, but I've obtained several very large pieces from pet stores when they put it on sale. I got one piece that used to be $30 for $15. I regret not buying the other piece they had that was the same price.

If you keep the dry food in with them at all times, that is probably what they are eating on. It also depends on how many you have. I once had about 200 hissers, and they would go through 2 apples in one night. I would come in the next morning and there would be 2 apple cores lying there.

I think I read somewhere that jumping spiders are the most intelligent arthropods. I don't remember where I read it originally, but I did find an article on wikipedia that said something similar to what I had read. It is in the first paragraph of the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(genus)#cite_note-1

I definitely agree with the cork bark. Extremely useful and expensive!

As long as you have a decent sized enclosure, Gyna lurida should be fine. They have a TON of babies, but they are so small that a ton of them can fit into one enclosure. I doubt you would have any problem selling them either. Also, they don't live extremely long (like hissers do). I have some Gyna lurida in a 20 gallon vertical terrarium, and they don't seem to overcrowd it. I started with 13 teeny tiny babies a while ago and now I have about 50 in total. The colony doesn't seem to grow very fast either. The nymphs take a while to mature into adulthood. I have a huge leafy plant in my terrarium that the adults love to sit on during the day and bask in the warm lamp I have on top of the enclosure. One of the bad things though when you get a bunch of adults is that at about 10 or 11 at night, they start to fly like crazy all over the terrarium! I don't even bother mess with them at that time of the day.

This reminds me of the time when I found a beetle larvae out in my yard. I kept it for many months until it finally pupated. I thought that it was a elephant stag beetle larvae, but when it finally emerged as an adult, it turned out to be a little may beetle (Phyllophaga). I was a little disappointed

I know how you feel. I only have small colonies of roaches now. It works much better than having huge colonies that generate lots of feces and dust.

Thanks for the articles. I did not realize that those spitting cobras were that accurate.

It appears to be using the bird dropping camouflage. Some caterpillars have been known to use it. I guess it is a case of convergent evolution.

Where was the link to the article about the person breaking into the exhibit? I searched through the article above and could not find it...I was curious to read about what happened.

If you go all the way to the bottom of the main forum page, there is a little link in the bottom left corner that says "Help". When you click on it, it brings you to a page that has all kinds of topics relating to the forum. I would imagine that is where the rules for posting are. Hope this helps

The same exact thing happened to my hissers one time. It was the substrate. As soon as I started to use a different substrate, it never happened again. Moss and wood chips were the two big things that I suspected that was causing the issue.

looks like there is a beetle in the top right corner of the 3rd picture. The only thing I found while in Florida was 3 dead Periplaneta americana in the bathroom when I arrived.

That's great that you are working to eliminate the hatred of cockroaches! It sometimes surprises me when people don't freak out when I tell them that I keep cockroaches as pets. I even sent some pictures of them to one of my friends (who is a girl) and she thought they were really cool. However, one of my male friends freaked out when I told him. hahaha

In my opinion, it's better to just forget the things that they do to you. Most likely, the people who bother you don't sit there on the weekend and think about what they did to you. So, the only person that you are really hurting by lingering on those comments is yourself. In my high school, it is rather large. So, I just avoid people who I know will give me trouble. I'm the kind of person who would sit there and talk about new theories in the field of psychology and differences in culture and stuff like that, so you get the idea of the kind of person I am Something that I've noticed about this forum is that 99.9% of the members are friendly. That was one of the reasons why I joined this forum.

1. No, the male one is not a dwarf hisser, and yes there is such a thing. I have had plenty of males that were barely two inches long, so its normal. The females are usually much larger than the males.

2. There are multiple reasons why the female may not want to mate. For one, the temperature may not be adequate. It is possible that the female could already be pregnant since you got her from a pet shop (assuming that the ones you got were taken from a colony). It is probably wise of you to hope that she is not pregnant if you do not want a colony, for the females give birth to A LOT of babies.

I wouldn't use any of the Gyna. They look too much like a "roach" on the underside. Of course, as long as they stayed upright I guess it would be a fine species. I vote for T. petiveriana. Not many people know that there is a roach that is black with domino spots on it. Plus, they are really adorable.

Keep in mind that P. nivea are really good escape artists though.