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Hi all, been thinking about moving my cultures of G. caffrorum and G. centurio to a large planted vivarium, but I'd like to keep the two cultures pure. Does anyone know if there's any information on the possibility of hybridization between the two? I've been unable to find much of anything. Thanks!

I'm new to this forum but needed to post this somewhere because to be honest I'm really bamboozled right now. I got my first pet cockroaches about a year ago, two male Madagascar hissers. Last August or so one died, so I went online and ordered 5 more males to keep the survivor company. They sent me 4 males, a female, and a female dubia. I emailed the seller and they were honestly quite amazing, offered to let me ship any females I didn't want for free and send replacement males. Just wanting some pets and not a multiplying colony, I sent back the female hisser but kept the dubia thinking hissers and dubias won't breed. They sent two replacement males, leaving me with 7 males and a female dubia by September 1st. Fast forward to now, the second original male hisser also died but I still have the 6 new males and the dubia. The hissers bully each other sometimes but as a whole everyone gets along quite nicely. Yesterday I went to feed them and lo and behold, there's 15 or so little baby nymphs! I look at my dubia and she's still a little "open" (I don't know the correct terminology) so they were clearly hers. I isolated her and all the nymphs I could find but now I'm wondering... How?? I never hear of dubia/hisser hybrids but unless she had a 5 month gestation period and I aquired her pregnant... That's what I have. I still don't know what I'm going to do with them all because I still don't want an ever-multiplying colony but I'll figure something out because I must say the babies are so darn cute and I'm quite attached to the dubia. Thanks for reading, sorry this was long. Has anyone else had something similar happen?

Hello everyone, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the set up I have for my Gromphadorhina hybrid colony. I apologize about image quality but I am not very tech savy... this took me all morning to figure out My goal is a half pet display half breeding project so I am trying to make the enclosure look presentable and also easy to clean and maintain population. There is a 2'-3' petroleum jelly barrier and the screen lid is secured with metal clamps. The colony started on coco fiber as substrate but I found that it was too difficult to keep track of the nymphs especially during cleanings; I switched to a green pet carpet with several layers of paper towels underneath and a hunk of moss which the nymphs enjoy burrowing in. The heating pad is underneath the enclosure but after reading a few post here I decided to side mount it when I get the adhesive. I am always tinkering with the setup and have a few more plans including covering the sides of the aquarium to make the enclosure feel a bit more closed in. For the water bowl I used to use the the cotton ball method, but I recently came across and article explaining how people can help bees in the wild stay hydrated. The idea is to fill the bowl with marbles giving the insect a surface to walk on while still being able to reach the water. I've also noticed the humidity has gone up a few degrees since I started this, and living in a dry climate like Colorado humidity is hard to come by. I keep between 25-30 adults at a 1:4 male to female ratio with anywhere from 3x to 5x that in nymphs of varying stages. I had many more at one point but cleared out a bunch to reset the colony once I really got into the hobby. The plan was to let them rebuild, but since thinning the numbers I have not seen a single escape attempt in months; I have also noticed most of the individual specimen are keeping their full antennae for much longer. I take this to mean they are happier so I will be experimenting with keeping the population low... How many adult hissers would be too many for a set up like this? I look forward to you thoughts. P.S. I don't know how important this is to the cockroach community but I do not euthanize these guys for population control; they are given to local reptile shops who happily take them and even offer store credit from time to time. This way feels much less wasteful to me.

So I got 7 roaches from a guy locally and they are sold as pepper roaches the pattern on the pronotum looks right and the size is right but they have no pepper pattern really except a little at the base of the wing. So the wings are a near solid brown. I took some pics I hope they attach well and will be taking better ones tomorrow. My 1st group of questions are: Is there another species peppered roaches could hybridize with? Is it possible this is a kind of morph? Could diet pay a role in adult wing pattern? (He said he didn't feed them often) Should I keep these separate from future peppered roaches I add to my collection? Then there's a person locally selling what they are calling death heads that look identical to peppered roaches. Along with the classic peppered wings the gold on the pronotum completely encircles the black pattern. I'm stumped on what to do about it. My 2nd group of questions are: Is there a death head hybrid that could look like a pepper roach? Should I be concerned about adding them to my patternless peppers? I know keeping them as just pets it shouldn't matter but when I get to many of them I want to be able to sell or give them away with 100% the right name so they get the right care. Thanks so much in advance for any help. The helpful nature of this forum is awesome I'm glad to be a part of it.