Leaderboard

All relative sizes should be correct as I tried to maintain same reproduction ratio while taking the photos. If any mistake exist, should be really minor.

Two females with ootheca. Finally, I got the first results! The male did a good job!

Found about a dozen babies in the enclosure the other day, after a gestation period of approximately 6 months. I've officially bred all three Panesthiinae species in my collection, yay!

Hey there! The things to keep in mind with most gyna species is temperature and humidity in my experience. Gyna centurio need to be kept at a minimum in the upper seventies range but will thrive and grow faster in the low eighties (80-82 would be optimal). A nice deep substrate that would hold moisture is needed for nymphs to burrow and relieve stress. Keep in mind to not flood the substrate as good ventilation is also needed (don’t want a swamp in there that would prove to be disastrous), mist the substrate one to two times a day thoroughly as needed. A good, deep coconut fiber bedding with dead hardwood leaves or lots of hides will do nicely. Make sure to not pack the bedding in as good aeration will be needed, always think no swamp, no swamp in your head as stated above hahah. Finally gyna LOVE Fruit and provide a roach protein source (I like fish flakes for my roach species) and I think you’ll be Golden 😊

Here is some of the color variation from my colony. Now that I have over 500+ individuals, i am prep to separate them by color/tone.

Thanks very much! I'll post again with an explanation of that. I plan to add another new species this evening.

Okay thanks guess I'll throw the sugary cereals to the trash then, I'm not planning to eat them and I'm sure the sugar would harm the dogs as well

My cockroaches (Megaloblatta blaberoides) love mushrooms (champignons) and bananas.

Another US native micro roach?! ooh la la Hopefully you will have continued success with them.

Well my adults are still alive and have been going to town laying oothecae, and I already found hatchlings in their deli cup the other day! Don't have any pics of the nymphs yet since they are just under a mm long and great climbers, but I did get some pictures of the oothecae last week:

I haven't found any either, besides those couple times they found me. 😂 Yeah, I 10/10 would not recommend.

Not sure about @Mwewe's species, but at least some of them do also provide.....exploratory bites. 😅 They're not TERRIBLE, but shocking enough to where I've involuntarily jumped on the 1 or 2 occasions where I was bitten and hastily went back inside my house to contemplate why the bug gods had forsaken me so. 😢🤣

Hey Hisser! was googling about something on my cannabis plants, and somehow stumbled upon what these little dudes might be… (Minute) Pirate Bugs 🏴‍☠️ they are omnivorous and primarily eat smaller inverts/larva/eggs and will also drink sap. they can/do bite humans… ”Minute Pirate Bugs (scientific name: Orius insidiosus) are all around us most of the time, and we don’t even notice them. These tiny black bugs are beneficial insects, abundant in yards, gardens, woodlands, pastures, and farmlands. Pirate bugs are Hemiptera (true bugs) and members of the insect family Anthocoridae.”

so cape cod roaches FINALLY shipped my centurion nymphs. I currently house other species of roaches and beetles, but have not housed any of the Gyna species. I`m pretty sure I know what to do, but I paid nearly $50 (including shipping) for 5 nymphs and I want to have the best chance at success with raising a colony. especially since in my experience nymphs of pretty much all species tend to be much trickier than the adults. once they make it to full maturity you tend to relax a little, but until then there are just so many things that could go wrong. any and all help would be much appreciated!

thanks! I have been doing pretty much all of these things as they just arrived two days ago. the only thing I don`t have a lot of is dead leaves but I have some as that is partially what their substrate consisted of in the container they arrived in. I think I just get a little too paranoid sometimes.

*UPDATE* I'm on my 2nd generation of mealworms, that have been raised on mostly pure styrofoam, I say "mostly" because I would give small portions of other food every month or so, mainly for the meal beetles that started emerging. I did find that meal beetles will eat some styrofoam, but they don't survive well on it alone and I don't believe that they break it down or compost it, like the mealworms do. This next time around, I will remove pupa and meal beetles into another container. I plan to feed the meal beetles normal fare (fish food, fruits, and I will attempt at seeing if they will compost leftovers from foods that I eat) while feeding the mealworms only on styrofoam. I added about 100 more mealworms to the group (yesterday) to try and get 2 generations going at the same time. Last of all, these links were sent to me, and I will now share them with you. They are about SuperWorms composting styrofoam! https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/beetle-larvae-can-survive-on-polystyrene-alone-67251 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719352258 If you are using mealworms or superworms to compost styrofoam, post up your experience!

I've got three adult males and an adult female now! The males are much more yellowish than I expected, only a very faint green, but they also have two reddish brown stripes going down the first half of their tegmina, kinda neat. The females on the other hand lack any such markings and are definitely more green, but still very pale, with an almost silvery sheen to them. Here are some pictures, first of a male: And now here is a female: Wish me luck in breeding these beauties and getting them established in US Blatticulture!

Hey there! The main thing to focus on for American Roaches is making sure their enclosure doesn't get too dry. Desiccation seems to be their number one killer in captivity. Other than that, you'll want to make sure that you're keeping them in a secure container (like a Sterilite Gasket Container or something similar) since adults and larger nymphs can climb well. Hides can be provided in the form of bark, egg crates, etc. They aren't picky about food; the average roach diet of dog/cat/fish food, fruits, and vegetables works fine for them. Temps should ideally be kept within the low 70s to mid 80s, but they can handle a few degrees less or more.

I think the issue was ventilation, I switched them to a taller critter keeper with a lot more holes in the top and haven't seen any die since. It's a shame I lost ~7 of my 12 at that point but they seem to be thriving now.

Periplaneta americana are pretty dang easy, just keep them humid, warm, and give them plenty of hides and surface area. They can be prone to eating their ooths if they don't have enough moisture or protein, but if both those conditions are met they are pretty easy to breed.

So I'd like to set up a roach bin for blatticompostng. I culture some earthworm species but they don't consume very much and I've heard roaches can be pretty quick and handle larger volumes of food. Who has experience with this? Any tips or tricks? If so, what species have you used and how do you keep them? Thanks!

Hello all at roach forum! my name is Kody and I have been interested in entomology my whole life, especially cockroaches. I am currently living in Northern California and am raising G. Portentosa(hybrid) and H. Palliata as pets. I’m lucky my apartment manger is an invert lover as well and she let me keep those two thank goodness but I am currently saving for a house with plans to build an insectary. I do have a decent sized collection of mounted specimens (mostly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera) but let me tell you my megascolia procer adult pair is the crown jewel of the collection :)! Anyways I’m very excited to be here and look forward to being apart of this great community. Thank you again hisserdude and Peter C. For your aid in helping me become a member so quickly it is much appreciated.

Welcome to the forum, happy to see you here! Hope you are able to expand your collection and eventually move to a house and get that insectory going!

Thanks for the warm welcome 😊 and they’re great aren’t they! Indonesia is definitely a place I’d want to visit someday; the insects are phenomenal there especially the wasps!

Welcome, Kody! 🙂 That's crazy lucky about the apartment manager. Hopefully you can get that house soon enough though and really expand! P.S: I had to look up the species, but those Megascolia procer are seriously some of the most impressive wasps I've seen. 😮

My colony has started to produced these differently sized wings and with different patterns. (So far I only found 3 or 4 of them). Has anyone ever seen or experienced anything like this before?

Lovely comparison for sure, thanks for sharing!

Thank you for your replies. This was what I could get from a frozen specimen.

Welcome! There are tons of great invertebrates in Texas.

Check it: https://umdearborn.edu/casl/centers-institutes/environmental-interpretive-center/research-resources/sustainability-initiatives/composting/blatticomposting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_AaZ2-tK9M < Kyle Kandilian of Roach Crossing https://www.roachcrossing.com/about-us/

I've used Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" and E. serranus. All you really need is a healthy starting number, an appropriate sized enclosure, and warmth. Once the colony gets big enough food disappears really quickly. I will say though I've had a lot of problems with too much moisture getting trapped in the enclosure because of all the water in fruits and veggies, so I would recommend good ventilation to prevent you ending up with a swamp in a bin. Thanks, Arthroverts

Yes indeed, I was just reviewing the Cyrillic alphabet and was trying to make sense of what I was seeing. How interesting! I never would have guessed "the" would be so problematic, but it makes sense after seeing how your alphabet doesn't really make allowance for it. Really? I've heard that in some areas Ukrainian and Russian are nearly identical, but maybe this was just a mistake or it has more to do with local dialects. But to return to the roaches, huzzah! Very good to hear they are already reproducing. Thanks, Arthroverts

Congratulations, this is great news!

I downloaded an app to learn Russian, and I am already surprised by how difficult the pronunciation of many Russian words is for me as an English-speaking American, ha ha. Maybe I'll just try to learn to read the language. Thanks, Arthroverts

125G Rotten Log New setup! Dead fallen and standing trees support more biodiversity than any other kind of terrestrial habitat feature. This kind of theme, with incorporation of wood-decay fungi and dead wood-inhabiting along with plants and other livestock, is fertile ground for development of model ecosystems. I have been working on a new setup with a large half-rotten Ulmus log as the main feature along with various living inhabitants. For future projects, I intend to experiment with introduction of fungal mycelia as a wood destroyer with fresh log pieces, but for this display I instead added a Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) fungus already established on a sawdust growing block. The tank is 48" wide with an approximate 125-gallon volume. One of the lid panels has a pair of integrated electrosonic misters, vent holes and a wire port. A pair of 5v case fans provide air circulation. Lighting is a pair of economy LED strips. There are some interesting plant and animal inhabitants in this enclosure. I'll post again with more details. Stay tuned!

Very cool setup! What's being housed in it?

Well the image upload is not working at all for me...guess I need to figure out some new hosting so I can post pics. In the meantime, here's a couple of Instagram posts where I included photos and a few details.. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRnaKLlMA0R/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CS5_vEnA3WV/

Got ten of these beauties to work with, hopefully I can get a colony established! 😁

Beautiful Polyphaga! Do keep us updated on how they do. Would love to learn Russian and/or Ukrainian to communicate with people such as yourself @Gromphadorhini, but from what I understand the language is difficult to learn (similar to how English is a difficult language, ha ha). Thanks, Arthroverts

After sticking voile over a handful of vents, I discovered something else: mesh fruit bags. The material looks to be at least as fine as voile (actually designed to keep out fruit flies!) and a bit stronger too.

Don't tell @Dragozap, ha ha, he's always after more Reticulitermes. Do share some photos when they arrive though, such an interesting genus. Thanks, Arthroverts

Also, some general FAQ's that I found interesting. http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html A few questions I enjoyed: 6.Why do cockroaches die on their backs? 7.Do cockroaches bite? 12.Are cockroaches really clean? 39.How do Cockroaches Digest and what organs do they use to do so? 56.How fast are cockroaches? 68.Color cockroaches most attracted to? 79.Can female-only set of hissing cockroaches give birth 7 months after purchase?

I just realized I only purchased my Halloween Hisser in March this year. I thought I had her much longer for some reason. Anyways, I'm just wondering how long they stay gravid, I heard 2 months. She's had 3 litters withen the 5 months I've had her. 2 months ago(2 litters withen that) and just 1 last month. She's dying now. She can longer move around. Her legs will move, and her anttenae(I don't know how its spelled) twitch and thats pretty much it. She also literally shriveled up. I mean, she looks like a nymph. She's been this way for a few days now. Today she has a "egg case" loaded from her rear. The babies have not "hatched" or "split" yet. Miscarriage? I'm just trying to solve a mystery thats bugging me. Thanks for any help!