wizentrop

My coco coir substrate is 5-6 inches deep.

That's a very interesting observation. I have never added any wood or leaves to my colonies (H. strumosa and L. grossei) and mine are breeding fine. Actually I don't do anything special other than giving them deep substrate... Panesthia, on the other hand, really need the wood.

@Smileyyup, do not get the Panchlora "white", they require a lot of attention to perform well. A very rewarding roach when they breed well, but that takes a lot of work. In fact, you cannot get the "white" because the only person currently keeping them is... me.

I agree, that sounds like a pathogen that took over the colony. It's uncommon, but because it is a closed system those things can happen in captive breedings from time to time.

I have a huge colony (a few thousands) of this species and can attest that there are a few bluish females in there, as opposed to the more common green ones. Seems like in every generation a few of these come out, maybe it's similar to the Gyna lurida yellow females. Not sure if the morph can be isolated. If you don't mind the FB link, you can see one at 0:43 in this video I took: https://www.facebook.com/643034584/videos/10158237111244585/

Your speckled crashed?? Wow, that is very surprising to hear, considering it is one of the most prolific and resilient Panchlora, able to withstand desiccation, long starvation, and a temperature range of -4C to 36C (25F to 96F).

You can always PM me. I'll just warn you that they are not cheap (you can find my old ads here to get an idea of the price), and express shipping from North America to Europe is also not exactly cheap... Right now I suggest not to ship anything anyway due to postal service disruptions - transatlantic parcels are heavily delayed. Even within North America we are experiencing massive delivery delays.

Yes, indeed I still keep them like @Hisserdude said. Over the last year or two I have shipped this species to other keepers around the world, however because this is a slow breeding species I doubt anyone else has to offer. No one in Europe keeps them if I remember correctly. My two colonies are thriving, and I am considering starting a third one. I really love this species - when they are crowded they look so unreal.. I mainly have adults now and because females are giving birth, I stopped offering them for sale until the nymphs get bigger and can be shipped. I no longer ship adults.

Yes, thank you. I haven't seen this being mentioned anywhere. More of my boxes were inspected this summer than last year. Most still went through and reached their destination, especially those with arachnids, but I think there has been some change in the inspection protocol. On the other hand, there were some nice organized imports to the US this year using Reptile Express, like the velvet worms.

I still have plenty. I sent some nymphs to Taiwan this year and they arrived well.

IT WORKS! Thanks for the heads up, @Hisserdude

I guess I should update this thread. After some discussions with @Hisserdude, and in light of a new scientific paper, it appears that this species is NOT Hormetica apolinari, but Hormetica strumosa. I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong when there is enough evidence so I will change all me labels from now on, and you should do the same. Unfortunately I cannot edit the thread's title.. but I will put a notice in the opening post.

@Ghoul I can send you some to Europe, PM me. I just sent a group of nymphs to Taiwan, so maybe they will also establish in the hobby in Asia.

Yup, I posted an ad for them a week ago. Probably one of the rarest roaches in culture right now - apart from my two original colonies, I know of only one other person who is keeping them.

Lovely! This is a species I have not yet seen in the wild. I must admit, they are much smaller than I originally thought. Very cute roach.

Those are very nice!

It might not be hot news, but I thought I'd share a new cockroach that I started breeding. Even when it comes to mainstream species, I always prefer to work with wildtypes (meaning strains that originated from known, wild populations) because I feel there is often too much mixing and hybridizing in the arthropod hobby, leading to weaker captive populations. Nymphs of this roach were collected in a small Honduran cave as an unidentified "Blaberus sp.". It appears to be a variety of Blaberus giganteus, with wide black banding and a darker color tone. Adults begin as white individuals but very quickly turn orange. The funny thing is that I never planned to keep B. giganteus. I avoided them due to their bad reputation - low tolerance for crowding and cannibalism. But this strain seems to be ok with it, I still have all the original adults sharing the space with hundreds of nymphs, and while their wings are no longer intact (well, they use them for courtship after all), they are still kicking. They seem to be very hardy.

Thanks, it might be easier once I see some nymphs.

Anyone wants to take a stab at identifying this Blaberus from northern Colombia? It is massive.

The magical moment of birth

This is great news and definitely a step in the right direction. I share your notion that Megaloblatta's oothecae are tough like bricks and must go through some kind of process in order to hatch. What was really interesting for me to read were the observations on diet preferences between adults and nymph. This means that they possibly occupy different habitats in the wild. Maybe the nymphs have a specialized diet, or are associated with other insects (termites, fulgorids). Another option is that they stay close to the mother and she directly feeds them or prepares processed food for them. I am not sure I would go this far, but it is not too far fetched when talking about cockroaches. In any case, well done on hatching them and I hope they do well!

They eat from all sides of the bark, regardless of whether there is food on it or not. My guess is that they require some of the wood fiber in their diet.

Yes, this is typical (also for Lanxoblatta), and one of the reasons that proper bark of good quality should be used with them, as opposed to cork. You can see in the photo I posted below that they slowly degrade the substrate, first by creating pockets for them to sit in, and then by actually making holes.

@Xenoblatta when I said pupae, I meant crushed pupae, to give the roaches an easy "start". They did not respond to other "prey" for me. They definitely don't go after live and active prey, because they are not built for it. Yes, you can say they are opportunistic - will eat whatever they stumble upon. Want to see something cool? Try to give them bird droppings, most chances they will take it. Mine were P. bilunata, a bit bigger than yours, but I did not succeed with the oothecae. Be careful with aphids as some feed on poisonous plants and are therefore toxic.

Very nice. I am keeping a related species (Lanxoblatta) so for me it was very interesting to see the subtle differences in the appearance of the nymphs, especially visible in the first photo you uploaded. Keep us updated on their progress.