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So a year ago I gave away my colony of red runners. I had noticed for awhile there was one nymph hiding out in my Blaberus fusca tank. This roach eventually mature in to a massive female. I saw her last alive in November. It would appear that a virgin female lives much longer than productive females. It seemed like they only lived a few months.

Happy New Year for all you who follow the Gregorian Calendar! May your collection continue to grow into what you want it to be: Keep on Roaching! Thanks, Arthroverts

Hello all, so recently I was nosing about under some pots (like I usually do), and I found this: : Apologies for the poor quality, it was completely dark when I took the photos and the camera didn't have enough time to focus once the flash went off. Anyway, just your regular Blatta lateralis. Pretty, but not very exciting. But that got me thinking. What species would you most like to find under a pot/log/stone? Say you are on a trip to somewhere, you flip over a log and bam! What species would you like to see? For me it'd be Blaberus/Eublaberus sp., or possibly some cool Panchlora sp. Thanks, Arthroverts

Hello friends! We will be celebrating the first anniversary of the Invertebrate Club of Southern California on the 18th, from 11:00-12:30, at Chanda's House in Redlands. Lunch will be provided, and we will be having some very special desserts (invertebrate-themed cake, apple pie perhaps...) to celebrate! Please let me know if you are planning on coming and whether or not you prefer a vegetarian meal so we can plan accordingly (super big Thank You to Chanda!). We will be having some sort of raffle/gift exchange/whatever-we-figure-out, because what is a birthday without presents? Also, we hope to be distributing club shirts for the first time after a long wait! Huge, huge thank you's to all who helped to make the first year of the ICSC's existence a great one, and to everyone, especially Chanda, who are helping to make this an awesome meeting to kick off 2020! Many thanks, Arthroverts

Happy New Year! I can feel the new species dropping already. 😋

That’s a lot of feeder roaches right there...with that said, I’d definitely go for megablatta longipennis

I do not know much about it, but I would want to see Polyzosteria mitchelli.

Probably some odd, large Corydiid or Eurycotis pluto. 🙂

Warmest of Christmas eve greetings from good 'ol Santa Chrysina! Be sure to leave some Juniper out for him tonight. 😛 Photo art courtesy of my little brother. lol

i did discover that roaches make excellent feeders for fish. I have been feeding a flowerhorn several nymphs weekly. He was 2 inches in June and is over 6 now with a massive head. I am trying to remember how to make pictures fit on here

I guess we are good until our individual states start banning them.

It's all 100% Certified, Verified, Confirmed and Condoned Fake News...except for that part about the US banning the keeping of roaches (not counting deregulated species or those kept under a permit), and the fact that the Australian enthusiasts are still teasing us with all their cool species, those unfortunately are still true. What tipped you off ;):D? Very sorry to hear that man. That has gotta sting... I might also add that quite a few species of roach were deregulated. You can read more about that here. Thanks, Arthroverts

Thought it was funny 😃

EDIT: Only now do I realize much of what's in your comment are jokes... 😂

Hmmm I wonder how much is true lol

Well, the US government outlawed roach keeping, Europe forcibly stopped all imports of new species, Roach Crossing went off the map (but wait, is Kyle back??!?), Africa started hiding its cool species from us, Asia went overboard with breeding and crashed their gene pools, Australia continues to tease us with their species, all the Oriental Roaches in the Arctic died, and the rest of the roaches mobilized their numbers via Insectgram to take over SpaceX and send themselves to another planet, saying they were sick of "being mistreated". What's new with you? Thanks, Arthroverts

Yes nutrition could be the answer. Tropical fish flakes are a good thing to feed them. A pet shop boy recommended them for crickets and my Discoid roaches and Germans did well with them also.

Sorry to hear that, mismolts like this can happen occasionally even if care is optimal, just an unfortunate part of the hobby... 😕 I hope you other individuals make it to adulthood successfully!

Very sorry for the loss; I know it can be heart-breaking. Best of luck with the others going forward.

Plants can survive with roaches in the short to medium term, provided you keep your roaches well fed at all times. I have kept ficus quercifolia with some rainforest species for a year, but the Vivarium eventually got taken over by hissers and they dug it up and chewed the fresh shoot tips. Cheers from Bill.

I would like to ask whether anyone has had success with trapping wild Periplaneta Americana. If so, the types of trap used, and bait. Also, what type of locations you selected. Thanks

I keep my non-climbing pie-dish beetles in a 2 gallon fish bowl and my E. arcanum in a slightly smaller bowl, both with no lids. They make great tabletop displays. i love being able to see them from all angles. I hadn't thought of putting isopods in one. I'll have to keep my eye open for more bowls!

No, people can't even eat that.

Hi we were just talking about the genus Gromphadorhina and Princisia with Orin on an other topic, and we were talking about their identification wich is difficult, and most of the time incertain. I think that a discussion about this would be really interesting on the forum, so that everyone can access the informations on this subject. Well, the discussion has started like this: me: "But beware, loads of hissers are actually hybrids or misindentified. I bought 3 different species last years, and give a male of each one to a friend of mine. He compared the genitalia with the schema of a scientific book and all the species were misidentified " Orin: "Gromphadorhina descriptions were based primarily on the horn structure of the male, I've seen some of the original descriptions. I'd love to see that schema of hisser genitalia in a scan. Original descriptions based on variable horn structure, pronotum shape and surface texture is why stocks I sent specimens of to a cockroach taxonomist identified as G. portentosa, G. oblongonota, and Princisia all interbreed readily in captivity. They probably are just geographic races and may not even qualify as different subspecies. It is not that people misidentify them, the original "Princisia" never existed and was simply a taxonomic error of someone trying to use a variable specific character as though it were a stable generic character (the notch in the pronotum) without checking to see the male genitalia were identical. However, this does not mean there are not a number of unique stocks that vary in appearance and specific husbandry." So, to continue this conversation, here is the scan: (sorry, he lend the book to someone and we can't remember wich species the genitalias refer to) It's from one of those books: • Herrewege C. van, 1973a – Contribution à l'étude des Blattaria de la faune malgache : I. Princisia, gen. nov., voisin de Gromphadorhina Brunner v. W., description d'une espèce nouvelle – Bulletin de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon. • Herrewege C. van, 1973b - Contribution à l'étude des Blattaria de la faune malgache : II. Description de huit espèces nouvelles appartenant aux genres Gromphadorhina Brunner v. W. et Elliptorhina gen. nov. – Bulletin de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon. According to the books, the pronotum isn't totally reliable: you can find different forms and sizes in a same population. The best way to identify them is the analysis of the genitalia, there are little differences... But they exists. In my opinion, in one hand, we should wait for the revision of those genus, and in a second hand, we should wait for the developement of genetics analysis and compare our hissers to the genetic code of wild hissers. This method is more and more used to identify diptera, we can hope to identify some hissers with this one day, and breed pure Gromphadorhina in captivity! You're probably right Orin, when you say Princisia is just a Gromphadorhina form. And I think that Gromphadorhina portentosa, Gromphadorhina grandidieri, Gromphadorhina oblongonata and Gromphadorhina picea are maybe four subspecies of a same specie, or maybe just geographic forms. There are already some forms known (some colours are related to particular area, other are just selection in bred).

I ventured back into the fish hobby and let my inverts simmer. Nothing new except some pantanal nymphs appeared in my Cyriocosmus elegans adult females container and ate her