Cut down a dead oak branch today to use the branch and long dead leaves and these were on the underside of most of the leaves. What is it? I'm assuming I shouldn't use these in my enclosures, right? Sorry I could only get one pic to attach.

Click to view attachment

What kind of oak is that? I have only seen one oak with leaf-spines like that, but the leaves were a slightly different shape. What you have pictured do not look like oak leaves, but leaves from a member of the Ilex family (holly, etc.). Ilex sp. can form black spots on dead leaves from either an active or latent fungal infection or from previous insect or scale damage (in most cases). I have not fed holly leaves to roaches ever so cannot speak from personal experience if they will get eaten or if those spots mean anything. Chances are it is fine, but its an experiment on your part. They are tougher than oak leaves which may or may not make them difficult to eat..... yoiu could try it and see- what species of roach are they for? (some wont touch leaves much or at all and others will eat leaves pretty readily).

Otherwise, before I get off topic, no, those spots should not mean anything.....

After typing this and thinking twice about it, I really doubt those spots can mean anything problematic to a roach.....

You could always bake them wrapped in foil for a couple hours at 225'F or so if it helped you feel less cavalier about putting them in the bin.

Just FYI-

I have these trees around my house, so this is what I use:

Red oak, Live oak, another that may be a Pin oak, Post oak, "English" oak, Pecan, Sweet Gum, Magnolia, Pear, Chinkapin Oak, Scrub oak..... and maybe one or two more a little farther off....

hmmm looks like Quercus agrifolia or coast live oak. I have never tried using it...but the leaves from it seem to be thicker than the other oak species.


Kevin

Its definitely an oak tree. I'll post a pic tomorrow of the live tree and a leaf or two. The spots seem to be some sort of insect pupa. Possibly whiteflies? I'll try to get a closer pic of the infected leaves too. The leaves that just fall of of this tree naturally don't have these bugs on them at all. These infected leaves were on a branch that died a long time ago and just hadn't fallen out of the tree. I think it is a Coastal Live Oak. I tried to look it up before and that sounds familiar. I've got a lot of scrub oaks around too. Might try some of those leaves also.

That being the case I would just bake the leaves to kill off any unwanted insects and it would be great to use.

I've actually used scrub live oak which is a lot like the one you are picturing. The ‘roaches ate the leaves fine but they left the little spines alone. Sounds great, but if you stick your hand into the substrate to pull out a couple of buried nymphs to feed off you get little prickly things in your hand occasionally. After a while they seem to soften up as they decompose, but I don’t use them anymore and mostly stick with scrub/Gambell’s oak.

I removed the 500K per post photo limiter. Of course, your other photo must have been 3X as large in file size as the one you posted since 500-121= 379K. For such a tiny photo in length and width, that sure is a large file at 121K! Unfortunately, I can't really see the details in the small photo that you are referring to.

Thanks Peter. I'm going to try to get a better pic just out of curiosity. I've got a ton of other oak leaves to use, so I'll skip these just to be safe.

this is a stupid question but do oak trees have acorns?if yes are oak tees the only trees that grow acorns?

Only oak trees have acorns!

I live in a country where the general public can't name 5 plants in their own yard (and dandelions are a freebie!). Your question is not at all unusual and it's not stupid. The difference between you and them is you cared to ask! (that, and you like roaches )

thanx.