Matt K

I'm not from Delaware, but might think it polite if your choice of user names were not so easily confused with mine...

Welcome to the fine world of roaches!

This is the link to the Ecuadoran Luci. :

http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1114-rudolph-bioluminescent-roach.html

What makes you so sure they were produced "100% asexually" ??

Interesting. I started this thread 5 years ago and just thought to read it through and see what people feed to what and how the feed was accepted, or not....

Sounds like they are just way too cold. Insect infections are pretty rare and unlikely.

Great article, but if you scroll 2/3rds of the way down there is a video of one hatching that is pretty cool.....

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years

Not sure if I am behind on the times or if this is new info for the forum, but I thought it was pretty neat-o:

Click here: Newly discovered Jumping Cockroach

I have no idea what gender it is. It seems to be able to lighten and darken its color. It is now a dark bluish grey with the orange and some white spots. Yesterday, when I first handled it, it seemed to be a lighter bluish grey.

If yoiu can get it to eat bugs from your hand, it will never (almost) bite again. My best two I give large roachhes to by holding onto the end of th roach with index and thumb, and they will snatch it up or even crawl onto my arm to wait while I get another with my other hand.

They are like mood rings. Brighter color= happy gecko= darker color = less happy gecko. Do whatever makes them brighter colored. I found that alot of people let them get too cool for too long and they get darker/unhappy.

On thier belly side, just above the vent, if it is a male there is a line of what appear to be larger scales with a hole in the middle of each scale in the line. These are called 'femoral pores' (referring to the musculature from the femurs) and males have them obvious, females either wont have them or they are very small. I will try to post a photo of each to compare yours by if you like. Males also tend to be blue-er and females tend to have a turquoise or olive cast, or be lighter. Again I'll try to get a photo which says 1000 words....

I started with one from a pet shop, then bought a mate for it at a reptile show, and now have 9 adult offspring and several juveniles of various ages, periodically I give them away to gecko dealers/sellers or friends,acquaintences, etc.

Beautiful!

I was thinking about getting a Tokay for nearly a year. I wasn't sure if I had the space for its care requirements(I have plenty of roaches for it ). Today, one was given to me by the owner of a local exotics shop.

It was love at first bite. So, I decided to make the space for my new gecko. It's bites weren't as bad as I thought and it seemed to calm down when I had it covered with my hands, while the employee got a container to put it in. He was getting bit by a few geckoes while he showed me some others that I could choose from, but I liked the one that I first handled.

I hope that it acclimates well and will eat many roaches that need culling.

I would also like to try to tame it, if it doesn't get too stressed with handling.

It wont stress out much unless you really squeeze it too hard. Is it a male or female? I feed mine culled dubia, superworms, earthworms, f/t pinky mice, crickets, grasshoppers, and just about anything else really. I posted in another thread here in reptiles section before seeing this thread....

I lucked out and one was given to me.

This one didn't look bad.

Actually, the man that got it out for me really liked them and got bit a few times while he showed me other geckoes to choose from. I was bitten a few times by the gecko that he handed me. It didn't hold on like I have read about them, and the bites weren't as bad as I expected. I decided to take it as it seemed to calm when it hid under my hands. <3

Not to hijack this thread, but.....

I really enjoy Tokays. They do calm down to become fairly handle-able. There is nothing out there that is as brightly colored and easy to feed. I don't handle mine, personally, but they still have come to be fed off of tongs or by hand. The male is a brilliant blue with orange spots and the female a nice olive-blue with orange spots. Occasionally the male will actually push open his cage door at night and wander around...and I know about it because he calls to the females when he is out of the cage and I can hear him anywhere in the house! Its easy to go grab him up and put him back though, so I don't mind. They are very entertaining for a reptile....

The first photo I listed above is an A. taylori, which a long time ago was thought to be a subspecies of A.bilineatus but later found to be its own species within the genus.

These are some terrarium pics:

Alot of animals are/were kept in sweaterbox drawers if they were terrestrial. These are the only terrarium photos I have online... I think I have a few other decent ones on a CD around here somewhere.... now I have to go look!

Very nice!

I have been wanting to get a Tokay locally, but the only ones I have seen for sale look emaciated and sick. For the prices, it would be a waste cause those would have to go to the vet immediately, and would still probably die. Maybe I could ask around and see if I could rescue one. Many people get them because of their beauty but are unprepared for the care and taming of the creatures.

If I have to settle for wild caught, I might as well go catch one myself, if I can find a location around here.

I have multiple pairs which don't stop breeding, and sometimes I can't find them new homes fast enough.... Go ahead and get one from any pet store no matter how thin it may look- they are very hardy and recover very, very quickly if you take care of them correctly. Most of the time in pet shops they look terrible because they are kept in poor conditions, and not watered out of employee neglect, and not fed as the typical pet shop employee gets "scared" of them. They do have a bad bite but after a couple of weeks you will find they calm down ALOT. Personally I think its one of the best reptiles money can buy given thier ease of care and inexpensive price ($24 and less).

I have used Purina brand Fish Chow for years. Cheap and easy.

This was easy and cheap enough I may make another one or two for the house. Basically its some 1/2 inch PVC pipe that I made the "bones" of it, then put weed barrier fabric over that, then a couple cans of spray foam and then paint. The legs are wrapped in black burlap I had leftover from a project years ago (I do tend to keep things I think I might use in the future). Eyes are plastic christmas ornaments I sanded the outer color off of and wiped with a little red paint on a paper towel. Lights are chistmas lights I stuffed in the eyes and ran around under the belly. The belly lights were red but I spritzed them with a little blue and purple spray paint and they are purple-ish light to the naked eye. The whole spider probably weighs 40 pounds +/- 5 lbs., so hanging and securing to the house was not an issue. So far it has stood up to rain twice and a windy day once with no issues. The head and legs all detach from one another as they are held by a screw that runs through the pipe where it is joined together, so I can dismantle it and store it in the attic for next year.

Now I have to find scraps of stuff to cobble together for Christmas, as my neighborhood has expectations of what I will do now.....

This 5 meter giant is 'crawling'over my garage.....

Happy Halloween !!

I got rid of all mine when my daughter was born a few years ago, but still have a few photos. Most of mine were nearly the entire Agkistrodon complex, and then a few others:

...I'll have to dig around my old CD's to see where I stored other photos...

I had never heard of "being careful not to give roaches too much protein".... sounds like a wives tale of sorts. For example, my orangeheads for some consecutive years were only fed dead and/or gutted mice and nothing else until a few years ago. (Thier food was a by-product of captive breeding many, many snakes which I no longer have). Similarly, I had hissers that went a few years with almost zero protein in thier diet and only vegetables for food. I eventually grew to feeding everything the same stuff because it got easier that way. Pelleted fish food. Carrots/apples, some mixed veggies or occasional other fruits. Water once a week or two.

What causes your interest in specific protein levels in dubia feed? What do you believe happens with too much or too little? Maybe that could get you a better answer from the Forum...

double post, sorry.

I had once seen someone take a wire-rack shelving unit and enclose it with 3/4 inch foamboard from a hardware store like Home Depot. This board has foil on one side that goes on the 'inside', and is available in 4 foot by 8 foot pieces which are very easy to cut with a razor blade. It is also VERY inexpensive ($10 a sheet?) and was attacked to the shelving with cable ties punched through the foam. It made for an insulated "cabinet" of sorts that you can fasion to whatever size or needs you might have and worked pretty well to keep the heat in. Personally I have a room I can keep in the 80-90'F range year 'round and don't use heating elements of any sort on individual bins.

I had only known D. eurythrocephala to be all jet black as an adult and about the same size as the ornate velvets (D.paulinoi).... but that was a long while back.

I have never ground up food, nor used ground up food. As deterivores in nature, they are designed to eat what is in front of them efficiently enough and grinding food only makes more work for the keeper in a couple of ways.

vary cool how long do thay live?

They live 20 to 60 days, reaching full grown size in a 10 day or so period. This species is both male and female, but other species are heterosexual. They reproduce in fair numbers, cannibalize one another (unless REALLY well fed) until you have a half-dozen or so, and the process starts all over. You can also put the culture on "hold", by draining the tank and let the sand dry out in the bottom. Eggs remain in stasis for years or until they get wet again. Eggs hatch in 18-30 hours and they start all over again. Easy to keep them for an eternity. Mine are warm temp species T. longicaudatus, but you can get a larger species that does well at room temp Triops cancriformis.

Here are a few photos of some of mine that are still juvies:

And lastly, here is one doing some swimming / acrobatics in the bin and bumped into the gravel when I took the photo:

@ Alex- when I have been in the tropics and have seen a papaya or guava tree, there are always lots of insects in the dead leaves below and always some type of roach or more.

Most mites are not a problem, and some can be beneficial. If in doubt, most countries have suppliers of Hypoaspis miles, a species of mite that eats other mites. They wont rid you of the commensurate mite that lives maturally on hisser roaches, but will reduce the number of them and consume grain mites and cellulose mite, among others. You be thankful of you are talking about commensurate mites on hissers. This is naturally occurring and I can't imagine why someone would want to get rid of them.