Hisserdude

Congrats on the mating! The deformation could be just a random genetic fluke, or the enclosure could have been a tad too dry, she may have been disturbed or jostled around while molting, not enough nutrition, etc., it can be hard to pinpoint the cause of such deformities sometimes... In any case it shouldn't affect her health at all, and she should be good to breed too!

@mantisfan101 I'd say there was probably something very wrong with them on arrival, perhaps due to them being crammed in such a small container... I'd set them up on an inch or so of coconut fiber kept pretty humid, with lots and lots of eggcrates to hide in, and a LOT of heat and ventilation, (that heat lamp should be fine), if any of them survive what is probably just severe shipping stress, then they should do well in such a setup.

Probably just some random molting incident or genetic fluke to blame, whether it negatively impacts the nymphs remains to be seen, the only thing I worry about are the subsequent molts, they might get stuck in their old skins...

Well since they are somewhat closely related, and female Therea share the same body shape as female Ergaula, I wouldn't be surprised if the male Ergaula attempted to mate with them... It should be impossible for them to produce any offspring though, they aren't THAT closely related! 😂

I personally find it hard to sex Gyna nymphs for whatever reason, until they're around subadult size... Even medium female nymphs often look male to me from below, of course once they get larger it's easier to tell...

It appears that way... I only know of one breeder in Hungary, and another in Russia with stable colonies, the rest of US and EU cultures have died out, and it doesn't seem any Asian breeders keep this species either, (or at least if they do, they never post about them).

Well the majority of people here in the US don't have permits for legally bringing in roaches, which is why I believe the packages with roaches in them being shipped from CA are being confiscated more regularly now... (though one of my friends also had his arachnids from you confiscated at the border too). As I understand it, the velvet worm ordeal was completely different in that it's not illegal to import them from other countries, as they are predatory and I do not believe laws have been made here regarding bans on that group of invertebrates, (considering they are so rarely kept). They also shipped them through an actual animal exporting service.

Unfortunately according to a couple of my friends, it seems the US Customs are being a bit more "cautious" of boxes from CA...

My guess is hybrid, has atypical coloration for pure portentosa or pure oblongonota...

Well I'm not in it for the money, I just like keeping interesting roaches and helping them become established in the hobby... Unfortunately my colony was sent to a friend when I took a break from the hobby, and they did not breed for him, so the species is essentially lost from US culture...

Mine is @invertebratedude, don't post there very often, but I am finding myself on there more and more lately...

No problem!

Actually if you go back and edit the first post in the thread, there should be an option to edit the title as well, I checked and I can still change the titles of threads I created years ago. As for the common name in the hobby, should that be changed to "Ecuadorian horned roach", instead of "Apolinari's horned roach"? I'm not sure if there are any other described Hormetica in Ecuador.

Totally depends on the species, but seeing as your enclosures are fogging up quite a bit, I'd probably add at least a small amount of cross ventilation to the tubs...

Subadult female: So far so good, just rehoused my colony recently, so hopefully by the spring I'll have hundreds of the things!