stanislas

Ah, now I understand! Well, I myself do at times worry that I might not be able to distinguish my Polyphaga species if I ever had to. So in that sense I understand your hypothetical challenge

Welcome Cole! I'm pretty sure that your experience with all kind of invertebrates can help the roach community as well.

I beg you pardon, but why do you need to be able to distinguish nymphs? Do you have them mixed? Or has the label fallen off? I'm a bit puzzled... But to be fair, I cannot directly help you with your question, as I do not have multiple hisser species. Although I find it very hard, next to impossible, to tell apart the nymphs of certain other related species.

Build a trap?

I pity that you live that far away (Belgium - Ohio is about 6527 km / 4056 miles). Otherwise you could get some excess roaches.

I think you should exercise some more patience. Could be that: - The adults aren't ready yet to reproduce. - The adults are very old. - It takes at least two month for the eggs to be ready. So... - Lower temperatures will result in longer hatching times. - Etc... None the less, I'm often impatient myself when I have new roaches. And patience one must have with some species... Good luck with your roaches! Link to: Useful information about this species

Perhaphs you can make an account and give some more information about things like: why, how, where.... That would certainly make communication easier and increase your changes of actually getting in touch. Just my 2 cents.

I did set up a second enclosure with moist cocopeat soil and a lot of stacked pieces of bark (both vertical and horizontal). A very well ventilated lid on top. After that I transferred around 12 animals to the new enclosure. It was a good opportunity to check my population. The inspection showed that I have some adults, and a lot of nymphs of at least 3 different stages. In my setup, the inter-generation time is around 8 months. And it turns out that the first generation gave at least 3 batches of young before they perished themselves from old age, with around 10 young in each batch. So if all goes well and assuming only little loss along the way, I should be able to crank out a decent colony within a year. Keeping my fingers crossed....

And what kind of articles do you need? How long? written toward what kind of audience? Scientific viewpoint? Or rather experience based information? Do you need additional photographs etc. Could you give some clues? I'm not familiar with the magazine.

Some update, as it has been brought to my attention that Schizopilia fissicollis isn't doing well in captivity for a lot of people. Mine are still going strong, but that are a bit picky when it comes to their habitat it seems. Here is what I do and what I learned: * How I keep them: - pure cocofiber at the bottom, slightly moist. On top of that some stones. On the stones I have a pile of dry pieces of bark. - I feed them fish food and some fruits. - I rarely mist the enclosure - I do not heat the enclosure. - There is plenty of ventilation in the system. - I keep disturbances to an absolute minimum. * What I learned: - They are sensitive to mold. - They do not need a lot of moisture, although they tend to hide in the slightly more moist lower parts of the bark pile. - They like fruit and eat a lot of fish food. I keep the fish food dry and I make sure that the fruit is never molted. I'm planning to set up a larger second enclosure to ramp up their number. Anyone else experience with this species?

Always beautiful to see! Wish there was a species that stayed that color, it would be an angel-like roach

A little over 3 cm / 1.2 inch.

Managed to take some better pictures, couldn't withhold these...

Every fall, just when the leaves have dropped, I visit the nearby forest to collect fallen oak leaves. I sterilize them in a microwave oven, dry them and put the in vacuum bags. That way I have fresh, ready to use leaves. I do add then to the enclosure of most of my species, but most only nibble at them (Therea bernhardti, Lucihormetica verrucosa, several Polyphaga species). However, some actually eat a lot of these leaves: Archimandrita tesselata and Hemiblabera tenebricosa, for example. Most of my species prefer the leaves to be a bit more decayed. Which will happen anyway if the leaves stay moist. But for those, I often go back to the forest after a while, when the leaves on the ground have started to rot and decay. So yes, roaches do fine on oak leaves. In my experience, some prefer them freshly dropped leaves, other prefer more decayed leaves.

I feed my 20 roach colonies about 2-3 times / week. It includes misting, replacing fruit/carrots, adding some water to corners if needed etc. Some I take a daily look at and do maintenance when needed (Pseudoglomeris magnifica and Schizopilia fissicollis for example due to their high investment costs and being hard to get). Others I tend to be more careless about, as they can deal better with scarcity, like the Polyphaga species I keep.