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About crepsis
- Birthday 11/19/1978
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Fort Collins, CO
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Possible genetic deformities on B. craniifer or...?
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in Health Issues
OH! Now that was the kind of explanation I was hoping for! Thanks again! -
Cockroach sex determination chromosomes
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in General Blattodea Discussions
Very cool stuff! Apparently, that was not in an abstract...I just assumed it was, because I had been reading so many that day, and the article was so short I guess it just all ran together in my head when I thought to post it here. It's actually an answer to a reader's question in 'India's National Newspaper' - The Hindu, by an Entomologist at AVRDC, The World Vegetable Center, Dr. R. Srinivasan, in Shanhua, Taiwan. -
OMG! OMG! OMG! I had no idea that my females had given birth before! They must have, because I just saw two nymphs less than 1/4 inch long! I'm so excited, and they're SOOOO cute!
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Possible genetic deformities on B. craniifer or...?
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in Health Issues
So it's definitely genetic. Rosenkreiger: Do you have any males that do not have that, or do they all have it? Did you happen to notice when they were nymphs if the "notch" was apparent at that time? I've just been doing some thinking about it, and if there are males that do not have that trait, it would probably be fairly easy to breed a line that do not show it in as little as 2-3 generations from several (or many!) initial pairings - with a LOT of work (fun), time, and LOTS of space/containers! But, if all males show that trait, then it's probably not possible...which it sounds like it is the case, since males from all those other species show the same trait It would be fun to give a massive project like that a go, and achieve the results though! I haven't been able to inspect every one of my males at this point yet, to see for myself, because ...(see below) BugmanPrice: I took that photo from about 12 inches away with a 12MP camera...my females are carrying oothecae right now, and I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize the babies! These are my first roaches, they just matured from nymphs about 2-3 months ago, so I want some successful 'births' before I go mucking about in their tank too much. I'll see if I can get a photo of one of the females, but for some reason they are harder to get pics of the underside as they seem to be a bit less outgoing than the males. -
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/disco...ckroaches_N.htm Fascinating!
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Cockroach sex determination chromosomes
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in General Blattodea Discussions
Unfortunately no, I've just been doing some research on the internet and found this piece of information interesting. I thought that it would be interesting for other people as well, since I had no idea that it was even possible for different sexes of the same species to have a different number of chromosomes! I found it in the abstract of a research paper on cockroach chromosomes, and I'm too cheap to pay for the whole article to read more, at this point, when I can probably find more related information for free with a little work. But, if I do run across anything else like this, I will definitely share it! -
Possible genetic deformities on B. craniifer or...?
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in Health Issues
Ok! I still have some questions though... So then is it a genetic trait, or is this a type of injury obtained when mating? I noticed that when mating, one of the roaches may try to run away, and ends up dragging the other around for a bit...which is why I was wondering if it could be a 'natural phenomenon' ( a result of being pulled apart after mating is finished) as opposed to a genetic trait. Are there males that do not have this trait, or is it something that 100% of males from B. craniifer, B. giganteus, B. colosseus, B. bolivianus, B. parabolicus, B. fusca, B. atropos carry? What about B. discoidales? Do you know if wild specimens carry this trait as well? Thanks! You eased my mind quite a bit! In addition, I'm finding this all very interesting to think about the genetics of it all... -
Some insects such as cockroaches, grasshoppers, and crickets have only one type of sex chromosome: X. This means that male and female cockroaches have a different number of chromosomes. This is very different from most organisms, which have either X and Y sex chromosomes (most people are familiar with these) or W and Z sex chromosomes (birds and some insects use these for sex determination). Females have two of the same sex chromosomes (XX) Males have just one sex chromosome (X0) <---The 'zero' is a place marker, it means that there is no second X chromosome there.
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Here's a short article about cockroaches conceived in space by the russian space program! How cool is that!? http://en.rian.ru/science/20080117/97179313.html
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Possible genetic deformities on B. craniifer or...?
crepsis replied to crepsis's topic in Health Issues
...it's more aesthetic than anything else, they don't appear to be physically affected by this. This is my first colony, and I'm just wondering if this is something that all male captive bred B. craniifer have and if it can be bred out through selective breeding, or if maybe this is a husbandry issue, or if this is a natural phenomenon? And as far as I can tell most of the males have this, short of picking out the roaches one-by-one to verify that they all do. Again, I must reiterate, it looks almost exactly the same, in the exact same spot on the males that I have gotten a look at, I've counted at least 4 that are like this so far and at that point, they either move around too much and I can't tell who's who anymore, or the rest are in hiding (it's very hard to see the underside of a roach in it's container!)...actually, come to think of it, I don't think I've seen a male that does not have this. Orin, have you noticed this before? -
I know part of this is a bit off-topic, but are there any studies that have been done on the genetics behind different roach morphs? Is it as simple as a dominant trait or a recessive trait, or is the black determined by something more complex?
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Well, I'm seeing a slight "notch" on the underside of the last segment of the abdomen in the *exact* same place on several (if not all) males of my adult B. craniifers. It makes the underside of the last segment appear asymmetric, and if the underside of the male roach looked like the letter U it would be on the left side of the last segment, with a single very, very small "bristle" sticking out of the notched area. The notched area also appears lighter in pigment, almost white or tan, to the rest of the segment, which is black. It almost looks like some kind of injury, but since it appears in literally the exact same place on them, it leads me to believe it's something else. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? What is this? I've attached the best photo I could snap at the moment...if needed, I'll see if I can get a better one later...the tiny bristle that I was talking about is the tiny little black "triangle" that appears inside and near the bottom of the white "notch" area. Also, some of the roaches, both male and female, seem to be missing all or part of just one of their antennae, since they were nymphs. Would this be the result of injury or something else. If the antennae are damaged as a nymph, do they grow back fully in the successive molts?
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I know they loved raw broccoli...unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it!) I fed the last of my crickets to my pet toad. The experience of catching them, raising them, and then breeding them was educational, fun, and exciting at times! I almost miss them, until I think why I decided to feed the last of them off in the first place.
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I have successfully raised Gryllus veletus (spring field cricket) to a couple generations before I couldn't stand the smell any more (but that was my fault - keep reading). Most likely the ones that you're talking about are either those or Gryllus pennsylvanicus (fall field cricket). G pennyslvanicus supposedly need to have their eggs go through a dormancy period in cold temperatures to hatch - at least 3 months or so. G. veletus overwinter as juveniles and lay eggs in the spring that don't need to go through that period, so, in my experience, can be raised indoors. I just started out and caught 10 small-to-medium-sized wild juveniles in the fall (that's how I knew they were G. veletus, as G. pennsylvanicus are adults at that time). If you're going to catch some G. veletus, I'd suggest catching full grown adults or very large juveniles in the next month or two, small juveniles will most likely be G. pennsylvanicus, and the eggs they lay (once reaching adult-hood) probably won't hatch. I just kept mine in a rubbermaid container with a good portion of the top cut out and aluminum screening glued in (they can chew through the plastic screening, or so I hear). They WILL jump all the way (about 6 inches from the top of the egg cartons) to the lid and cling to the screen, so just beware. They just had 12"x12" egg flats to hide in, and I kept a moist container of coconut bedding for them to lay the eggs in (with a "bridge" for them to be able to get into it). They do tend to dig up the coco bedding and it gets all over the bottom of the bin they were in. Fed them oranges, apples, oatmeal, monkey chow (very similar to dog food, but in larger 'biscuits' with eggs as protein source instead of meat), and just about anything that you'd think would be good for them. Water: misted sides of enclosure and water crystals. I'm still not certain how they got the water out of the water crystals, because I never ever did see any of them actually trying to chew the pieces of gel, they always just sat there sucking on them it looked like - that's why I misted the sides of the enclosure, I was always afraid that they weren't going to get enough moisture from the water crystals. The secret it seems to keep them laying eggs, is to keep their enclosure heated (but not enough to bake them, obviously!). They seem to lose interest in laying eggs if they're not warm enough. If you do catch some, and they're not laying eggs, just try raising the temperature bit by bit and seeing if that helps. I removed the container of eggs and hatched the pinheads (they look like 'little black ants' with a white stripe between thorax and abdomen) in a seperate container, and then transferred them to the large bin when they were large enough not to be eaten very easily. One thing I noticed about these crickets vs Acheta domestica (pet store variety that you have in the pics), is that the eggs seemed to be a *bit* more forgiving of drying out then the pet store variety. You will want to try and keep the container with eggs in it damp. I let mine completely dry out for about 3 days, and I mean BONE dry, before wetting it again, and the eggs still hatched (I don't know if all of them did, but a lot sure did!) - but that's just my experience...everything else I've read always says that will kill the eggs. They are so much better looking then the pet store variety cricket, and they are definitely much plumper and generally larger than them too. However, they chirp much louder as well. They are also more agressive (I just mean aggressive for a cricket - which isn't too much) and therefore, much more interesting to watch then pet store ones. If you like watching the pet store variety, you'll REALLY enjoy watching the ones you raise from wild stock. I don't think they're stinky like the pet store ones, but if you don't keep up on cleaning the enclosure (as I obviously didn't!) the dead ones will begin to make whatever room you keep them in smell rotten! I don't know if it was the monkey chow that I was feeding them, but their poops were light tan dry little pellets, and the enclosure itself didn't smell, nor did the crickets, but when they died, they'd rot and stink up the place, just FYI.
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Do they get their orange coloring after their exoskeleton has dried a bit?