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Lucihormetica grossei (Mega Glowspot Roach)


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Got a pair of this species from Roachcrossing the other day, they are the largest Lucihormetica in the hobby, and are quite beautiful! :D Hopefully they'll breed for me!

Male

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Female

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My male L.grossei and subcincta together for a size comparison, as you can see, grossei is quite a bit bigger!

LucihormeticaComparison%25232.JPG

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6 hours ago, Randomjoe said:

Very nice looking hope they breed for you.

Thanks, me too! :)

2 hours ago, Skyvie said:

Totally awesome! Good luck with them; they definitely look worth the effort :wub:

Yeah, they are amazing, I really love them! Thanks, hopefully they'll reproduce for me, they shouldn't be too hard to breed. 

2 hours ago, varnon said:

I like the size, but I still think L. subsincta is the prettiest of the glowspots.

I also think subcincta is more pretty, just by a little bit though, grossei is gorgeous too! :D Plus my grossei are more active than the subcincta, but not skittish, so I like handling them more. 

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3 minutes ago, Blaberus Craniifer said:

Those look awesome, I hope they do well for you =)
I've heard that you can feed them faerie fire mushrooms to make their spots glow, you should try that and record your results!

Thanks, me too! :)

You know, people always say that, but I doubt it actually works, why else aren't there people posting photos and videos of them glowing on the web? Plus I don't want to rear mushrooms, so...

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Lol, yeah, Hisserdude, raise the 'shrooms to get the spots glowing - that should be really easy to do...

^_^Let's see...foxfire mushrooms gathered before a storm or during wet weather (Wikipedia)? Check. Four old decaying hardwood tree stumps and/or logs? Check. High humidity enclosures? Check. Get rid of roach collection because 'shrooms are taking up all extra time? Check. Sign up for counseling because shrooms didn't ever glow? Check.:wacko:

Awesome suggestion, Craniifer, though I don't think most of us are mycologists. It would be wicked cool, however, if someone actually lived in an area where these things grow and could say "Yea" or "Nay" for their effect on luminance in captivity, but....

Maybe we should find volunteers??

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2 hours ago, Skyvie said:

Lol, yeah, Hisserdude, raise the 'shrooms to get the spots glowing - that should be really easy to do...

^_^Let's see...foxfire mushrooms gathered before a storm or during wet weather (Wikipedia)? Check. Four old decaying hardwood tree stumps and/or logs? Check. High humidity enclosures? Check. Get rid of roach collection because 'shrooms are taking up all extra time? Check. Sign up for counseling because shrooms didn't ever glow? Check.:wacko:

Awesome suggestion, Craniifer, though I don't think most of us are mycologists. It would be wicked cool, however, if someone actually lived in an area where these things grow and could say "Yea" or "Nay" for their effect on luminance in captivity, but....

Maybe we should find volunteers??

Yeah, would be quite a bit of work, and I don't have rotten logs ANYWHERE near me, I live in a scrubland type area.... :(

You can buy glowing mushroom kits here: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=glowing+mushroom+kit Don't know if they are edible for the roaches though, or if they would even make their glow spots glow at all...

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Yeah, I was just havin' a little fun - I wonder if the kits offer the right chemical for the roaches to glow. Hmmm. I guess we'll never know because it seems that most people with Lucihormetica are like me: They just enjoy these beauties without needing the glow! :)

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26 minutes ago, Skyvie said:

Yeah, I was just havin' a little fun - I wonder if the kits offer the right chemical for the roaches to glow. Hmmm. I guess we'll never know because it seems that most people with Lucihormetica are like me: They just enjoy these beauties without needing the glow! :)

It would be worth a try, maybe one day I'll get around to experimenting with them, or wait until somebody else does lol! :P Indeed, they are beautiful just the way they are, without the glow! :)

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
40 minutes ago, dactylus said:

Beautiful pair of animals!!  Good luck with the breeding of that pair!!

Thanks, they certainly are beautiful! :D Fingers crossed I'll have babies soon!

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  • 3 years later...

Well I never updated y'all but that first pair never bred, adult Lucihormetica apparently don't handle shipping that well, none of the adult Lucihormetica I received ever bred for me, and several of my friends have had the same experience when receiving adults, (but have established colonies of those same species from nymphs they bought just fine). 

Anyways, here I am, starting with a group of small nymphs in 2020, hope I can rear them up and breed them successfully! 😁

L.grossei%252318.JPG

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  • 5 months later...
On 8/20/2020 at 2:25 PM, Hisserdude said:

Well I never updated y'all but that first pair never bred, adult Lucihormetica apparently don't handle shipping that well, none of the adult Lucihormetica I received ever bred for me, and several of my friends have had the same experience when receiving adults, (but have established colonies of those same species from nymphs they bought just fine). 

Anyways, here I am, starting with a group of small nymphs in 2020, hope I can rear them up and breed them successfully! 😁

L.grossei%252318.JPG

L.grossei%252322.JPG

L.grossei%252323.JPG

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How are they doing now? I didn't realize Lucihormetica didn't handle shipping well as adults, what was the setup like? Curiosity and desire to compare notes. I had recently lucked out and got a whole colony of subcinta that another didn't want, there were a few aborted ooths within a week but as of this month I have a few batches of nymphs from them. I'm very new to this species, having the colony for about 2 months now and only just learned about grossei like... 5 minutes ago...

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14 hours ago, Diablo said:

How are they doing now? I didn't realize Lucihormetica didn't handle shipping well as adults, what was the setup like? Curiosity and desire to compare notes. I had recently lucked out and got a whole colony of subcinta that another didn't want, there were a few aborted ooths within a week but as of this month I have a few batches of nymphs from them. I'm very new to this species, having the colony for about 2 months now and only just learned about grossei like... 5 minutes ago...

They're doing great, actually just had some mature! :D

My current setup is a moderately ventilated two gallon bin filled nearly to the brim with moist, compressed coconut fiber, with some bark slabs buried. My old setup in 2017 was similar, but again I received that pair as adults, and they never bred. This time I started with nymphs, reared them up, and hopefully will have better luck now. :)

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  • Hisserdude changed the title to Lucihormetica grossei (Mega Glowspot Roach)
7 hours ago, FlamingSwampert said:

Beautiful! I definitely have my eye on L. grossei now...

They're definitely my favorite of the currently cultured Lucihormetica species. 😄

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Just curiosity, could they have never bred because it was only one pair? Im having a similar issue with my supposed colony of b. Fusca- had them before and they bred like crazy, but this round they just aren't. First go I bought 200, this round I got 20 and I'm down to just 5 adults and 2 large nymphs with no new batches. Blowing my mind compared to the first round.... but back to the topic at hand 🤣 

 

I definitely have my eyes on this species as well, amazes me all the stunning species just hidden in the hobby, even the subcincta I didn't know about until I found someone who had em and i had to look them up. Jet black body with bright orange and yellow accents that glow in the dark in the wild- how are these not one of the most famous? 

 

For my bins I do a cookie cutter style 80qt gasket sealed bin with roughly 70% of the lid being aluminum screen- but the huge airflow area is to accommodate that they are stacked and the entire room is set to a certain temperature, I noticed early on that the way I have my room set- small airflow areas pose a risk of the bins overheating and if stacked possibly little to almost no airflow. Burrowing species like these along with my giant peppered and ivory heads get 1-2" of peat moss/coco fiber mixture with chunks of mesquite bark mixed in and vertical egg flats. The egg flats are a new method for species like this after I had way too many for just wood climbs and saw someone else using egg flats. They're all (with the exception of b. Fusca, dangit) doing quite well for me. Surprised by any sort of success because I just sort of fumble around and guess most of the time- love moments like this were I get to actually learn without being laughed out like when I went into some group and asked a general question of "anyone here have any luck with megaloblatta longipennis?" After I realized those exist. 

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6 hours ago, Diablo said:

 bin with roughly 70% of the lid being aluminum screen- but the huge airflow area is to accommodate that they are stacked and the entire room is set to a certain temperature

Just a quick question, and maybe a suggestion (if you haven't already thought of it, lol): If you have the bins stacked, but are worried about airflow, you could always do screens on the sides of the bins. Doing that would allow you to stack them to the ceiling if you wanted without obstructing cross ventilation to each bin.

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1 hour ago, RosenKrieger said:

Just a quick question, and maybe a suggestion (if you haven't already thought of it, lol): If you have the bins stacked, but are worried about airflow, you could always do screens on the sides of the bins. Doing that would allow you to stack them to the ceiling if you wanted without obstructing cross ventilation to each bin.

I definitely came to that conclusion pretty quick after I ran into a problem. I should have done it that way to begin with, but I am a pretty stubborn guy along with being big time ocd and already having a dozen with the lid airflow.  There are some pros to it, if I were to stack them on racks (which I've been able to find the perfect ones, just haven't purchased them yet) it will allow airflow while also helping to retain humidity too since I live in a very dry climate. For now, I just have them all spread out in my bug room with an egg flat on half of the screen. 

 

Whole thing was most definitely a face palm moment in hindsight, seems I'm one who must learn the hard way hahaha.

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13 hours ago, Diablo said:

Just curiosity, could they have never bred because it was only one pair?

Nah, I've started many a colony with single pairs, that should not have been an issue whatsoever... If the pair was healthy and undamaged from the trip to me, and the enclosure was set up properly, (and I believe it was), they should have bred. 

13 hours ago, Diablo said:

I definitely have my eyes on this species as well, amazes me all the stunning species just hidden in the hobby, even the subcincta I didn't know about until I found someone who had em and i had to look them up. Jet black body with bright orange and yellow accents that glow in the dark in the wild- how are these not one of the most famous? 

The subcincta are pretty well known within the roach hobby, but the roach hobby in general is kind of an obscure one compared to some of the other invert hobbies, so sometimes even the more popular roaches stay obscure for most animal breeders. 😅

13 hours ago, Diablo said:

Burrowing species like these along with my giant peppered and ivory heads get 1-2" of peat moss/coco fiber mixture with chunks of mesquite bark mixed in and vertical egg flats. The egg flats are a new method for species like this after I had way too many for just wood climbs and saw someone else using egg flats.

Egg flats are good for species like Blaberus and Archimandrita and some other burrowing roaches where the adults enjoy spending time on vertical surfaces, but Lucihormetica will rarely use such surfaces as they spend most of their time underground even as adults, with males wandering the surface guarding burrows and sometimes fighting each other for territory. 

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