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First Hiss!


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A couple of days ago during a cage clean out I was trying (carefully!) to extricate one of my hisser nymphs (born in January) from a crevice in piece of cork bark I wanted to move out of the cage. It really, really didn't want to budge, so I was trying to persuade it out by pushing it gently with a soft artist's paintbrush, when I heard this soft, quiet little hiss. At first I assumed I was just hearing one of the adults hissing from further away, but when it hissed again I could see its little abdomen contracting and it was definitely coming from the nymph :) 

That's the first nymph born in my care that has grown big enough to hiss, and after all the disappointments of the first few months of owning hissers, during which one of my females and the small number of nymphs she gave birth to all died, it finally felt like a proper roach keeping milestone has passed :D

Yes, I know it's only a silly little thing, but it made me smile! :)

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Yay, congrats! :D BTW, how large is the nymph? Been wondering at what age exactly they can start hissing....

 

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Thanks guys, it's funny how little things like this can make keeping, let's face it, creatures that most people have a visceral hatred of, only come to make me love them more! :wub:

Hisserdude - the oldest nymphs were born on 25th January so they are about 9 weeks old. I *think* these are now at fourth instar, though I am not certain of that as I haven't seen them all shed. It's about an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter long, I would say, without actually measuring it, but still quite thin as it only shed maybe a couple of days before I heard it hiss. They seem to be growing faster than the four from the initial female that died (and that all died themselves too), I don't know whether that's because there are a lot of them (never managed a definitive count yet but there are at least 30 over 3 births, two of which were fairly small litters - 7-8 nymphs - and one much larger) and having a more "social" environment helps their development, or whether the females that gave birth to these nymphs (from a different colony) were generally healthier genetically/nutrition wise than the first ones I had. Either way I now have a small number (4-5) of larger, thinner nymphs that I assume are fairly new fourth instars, and a lot of very fat looking third instars that I am sure will follow soon!

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5 minutes ago, BlattaAnglicana said:

Hisserdude - the oldest nymphs were born on 25th January so they are about 9 weeks old. I *think* these are now at fourth instar, though I am not certain of that as I haven't seen them all shed. It's about an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter long, I would say, without actually measuring it, but still quite thin as it only shed maybe a couple of days before I heard it hiss. They seem to be growing faster than the four from the initial female that died (and that all died themselves too), I don't know whether that's because there are a lot of them (never managed a definitive count yet but there are at least 30 over 3 births, two of which were fairly small litters - 7-8 nymphs - and one much larger) and having a more "social" environment helps their development, or whether the females that gave birth to these nymphs (from a different colony) were generally healthier genetically/nutrition wise than the first ones I had. Either way I now have a small number (4-5) of larger, thinner nymphs that I assume are fairly new fourth instars, and a lot of very fat looking third instars that I am sure will follow soon!

Good to know, so pretty early on then! :)

They are probably healthier than the nymphs from the first litter were, and may be from a genetically healthier stock as well, which would explain why they are growing faster, and why their parents gave birth to larger broods. :)

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