Jump to content

Schizopilia fissicollis


stanislas

Recommended Posts

I'm very happy at the moment as I got 10 Schizopilia fissicollis nymphs today from Nicolas Rousseaux! 
They are beautiful (in my opinion at least) :) 

Schizopilia_fissicollis_1s.jpg

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw pictures posted by Hisserdude of the Lanxoblatta roaches. They are indeed very similar. 

How do you keep the Lanxoblatta roaches? Temperature, food, housing?  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So envious, this species is very high up on my wish list! :D Hope they do well for you, be sure to let us know when you have adults! 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, stanislas said:

How do you keep the Lanxoblatta roaches? Temperature, food, housing?  

@wizentrop says they aren't picky about temperature, I don't know how warm he keeps his. They seem to only eat fruit in captivity, and need vertical, smooth bark hides, they never touch the ground if they have to. They also don't seem to need much in the way of ventilation.

How do you keep Schizopilia? Do they also need vertical bark hides, or can they be placed horizontally?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hisserdude said:

@wizentropHow do you keep Schizopilia? Do they also need vertical bark hides, or can they be placed horizontally?

Nicolas (the very friendly guy I got them from) keeps them at 25C/77F with little ventilation. And he had (relatively smooth) pieces of bark on the bottom, under which they hide. 

Here in my enclosure, I've provided some wood with smooth bark vertically and horizontally placed. On the bottom there is composted leaves with whole dried leaves on top. So far they either stick on the wood (horizontal and vertical) or reside on the leaves at the bottom. They do walk around over the bottom, but prefer to stay on the dried leaves while doing so. They have eaten apple and fish food flakes. They haven't shown any interest in carrot. I'll try more types of fruit the coming week. 
I have them at 27C/81C at the moment in a 30x30x30 cm / 12/12/12 inch glass enclosure with half of the lid glass and the other half metal with ventilation mesh. 

I wish it would be easier to exchange roaches between the US and Europe! 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, stanislas said:

Nicolas (the very friendly guy I got them from) keeps them at 25C/77F with little ventilation. And he had (relatively smooth) pieces of bark on the bottom, under which they hide. 

Here in my enclosure, I've provided some wood with smooth bark vertically and horizontally placed. On the bottom there is composted leaves with whole dried leaves on top. So far they either stick on the wood (horizontal and vertical) or reside on the leaves at the bottom. They do walk around over the bottom, but prefer to stay on the dried leaves while doing so. They have eaten apple and fish food flakes. They haven't shown any interest in carrot. I'll try more types of fruit the coming week. 
I have them at 27C/81C at the moment in a 30x30x30 cm / 12/12/12 inch glass enclosure with half of the lid glass and the other half metal with ventilation mesh. 

I wish it would be easier to exchange roaches between the US and Europe! 

Very good to know! So they don't sound quite as picky about their hide placement as Lanxoblatta then. :) Good to know they'll accept protein too, Lanxoblatta seem to reject anything but fruits in captivity, (apple seems to be the personal favorite of mine).

Ugh, me too! I'd totally trade Arenivaga and other US natives for these and other exotics, if only our laws weren't so strict... :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Test Account said:

Wouldn’t soft shrooms and blanched vegs be equivalent to “fungi and mosses”?

Well I'm sure they'd eat mushrooms, don't know about the veggies. I meant to say they reject any of the other staple roach foods besides fruit in captivity, obviously they'd probably eat various fungi, if you offered it to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Hisserdude said:

Well I'm sure they'd eat mushrooms, don't know about the veggies. I meant to say they reject any of the other staple roach foods besides fruit in captivity, obviously they'd probably eat various fungi, if you offered it to them.

One of my really old marine fish megabooks said that lettuce is ignored by saltwater fishes when raw, but after freezing and thawing it is eagerly guzzled. Since thawed frozen lettuce has weakened cell walls, the author speculates that it has the texture of soft algae the fishes are used to eating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Test Account said:

One of my really old marine fish megabooks said that lettuce is ignored by saltwater fishes when raw, but after freezing and thawing it is eagerly guzzled. Since thawed frozen lettuce has weakened cell walls, the author speculates that it has the texture of soft algae the fishes are used to eating.

That's very interesting, now I wanna try this with my Lanxoblatta. Not that I normally have lettuce in my fridge anyway, and they grow fine on a diet of just fruits, but it can't hurt to try. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, this is typical (also for Lanxoblatta), and one of the reasons that proper bark of good quality should be used with them, as opposed to cork.
You can see in the photo I posted below that they slowly degrade the substrate, first by creating pockets for them to sit in, and then by actually making holes.

Lanxoblatta-babies-3.jpg

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's interesting! So it looks like they might need quality bark that is sufficiently softened by rotting? They eat from the underside? 
I've found that if I put fish food flakes on the bark, they are more likely to eat it. Now I'm experimenting with making a kind of fish food paste and smear that on some places to see if they eat it. 
But I will get some larger piece of bark that is more rotted to see if they eat from that the way the Lanxoblatta do. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lo and behold, one of the nymphs molted into adult stage today!
Not yet their final color...

Schizopilia_fissicollis_7s.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One can also see the translucent area in the pronotum above their head. I assume this helps them to see light - dark while keeping their head under it. 

Schizopilia_fissicollis_8s.jpg

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, stanislas said:

That's interesting! So it looks like they might need quality bark that is sufficiently softened by rotting? They eat from the underside? 
I've found that if I put fish food flakes on the bark, they are more likely to eat it. Now I'm experimenting with making a kind of fish food paste and smear that on some places to see if they eat it. 
But I will get some larger piece of bark that is more rotted to see if they eat from that the way the Lanxoblatta do. 

Well, you might not want to use bark that is really rotted, as it'll degrade much faster.

2 hours ago, stanislas said:

Lo and behold, one of the nymphs molted into adult stage today!
Not yet their final color...

Oooh congrats! :D LOVE the unusual pronotum shape of this species!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Test Account said:

You can always substitute frozen lettuce for frozen zucchini/carrot

Well we almost never have zucchini either lol, but I have a ton of carrots on hand, so maybe I'll try that out! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...