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Jondice

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  1. Just wanted to follow up to my own question. It appears to be totally normal! It takes a few days for the wings (and exoskeleton, I suppose) to completely harden.
  2. The first of 8 nymphs I have recent matured to adulthood. All seemd fairly normal at first except one of the "under wings" was a bit malformed and sticking out slightly, but it didn't look as if it was really bothering the roach. A day later I noticed that the wings still feel very soft, much softer than I remember when I handled an adult about half a year ago. Is it normal for the wings to take over a day to harden?
  3. Yeah, I suspect that as it is a moderately sized container with a lot of substrate, the humidity has been going down since I initially added the soaked substrate (it looked fairly dry this time). I just ordered a hygrometer, and in the mean time, poured a bit of water into the substrate. Too little humidity can be a problem for molting - can too much humidity also be a problem?
  4. Just wanted to post a similar issue. This tesselata was fine when I got it, but something seems to have gone wrong in one of its molts. I found it like this about 15 hours ago buried in substrate (coconut husk): Link to image: https://goo.gl/photos/rkZCbPtSvN4vRNRD7 Even to someone new to roaches like myself it was obvious that the old exoskeleton was still partly attached in the posterior. I cleared it off a bit. What's more strange is that the anterior is extremely arched, but I don't think it has much of its old exoskeleton attached in that region. I'm hesitant to pry more away while it is still alive (as I might be prying off the current exoskeleton...), of course, I suspect it is doomed ... however, now that I've removed some of the old exoskeleton, it at least attempts locomotion a bit more than before but is clearly having problems. Unfortunately I can't measure the humidity currently; maybe I should start to do that, even though I mist regularly. Or does this just happen from time to time?
  5. Well, just thought I'd follow up with the outcome; unfortunately, this morning I found it upside down in the "ICU" and totally unresponsive - it is dead now, so the predictions were correct. It seemed at first like it might have had a chance when we found it but things deteriorated rapidly - I now realize that finding it on its back was probably a bad sign to begin with. Thanks again for the suggestions - maybe they'll come in handy if there is a next time (hopefully not!).
  6. Regarding the lid ... There was none; I didn't think they could escape, but that was soundly proven incorrect. I subsequently built a lid.
  7. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm trying the "ICU" approach.
  8. We had a couple (male/female pair) of peppered roaches that we obtained at a local entomology event - the first species we tried, and they have been great. The female became an adult a couple of months ago, and escaped about 5 weeks ago - I adjusted one branch to be about 3" from the top of their brand-new unlidded terrarium and apparently that was enough leeway for her to get out. In despair, I ordered a colony starter kit from roachcrossing.com, and that has been going well so far. I also built a lid... Tonight, my wife was rather shocked to see the female on its back in the laundry room. I guess it had fallen and was either too malnourished/dehydrated (we live in the north and the heating makes for dry winters indoors) or possibly injured, to flip over, which is difficult even for a healthy roach on a flat surface. In fact, I thought it was dead unti I touched it. I gave it a quick warm rinse and put it in the enclosure. It will move around a bit, but it is extremely clumsy and weak; if I put it briefly on its back, it will show no interest in getting up, and it isn't quick to grab on to a side of tree bark if you put it in front of the roach like a normal roach would be - instead it will likely fall to the bottom. I also haven't seen any signs that it is interested in food (apple or fish flakes). Any suggestions on what I might do to revitalize it? Add sugar or juice to the water for a day perhaps?
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