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Roachforum is the oldest of the existing invertebrate forums. Thanks to every member and especially Peter of BIC for keeping it alive. The costs and competing groups that come and go could easily have fizzled it out without such support.

As some of you may know, my username on all the invertebrate forums is "Hisserdude", so true to form I thought I'd create a reference of what the PURE hobby Gromphadorhini are supposed to look like, since we are facing a mislabeling epidemic that threatens to inadvertently eradicate pure hisser stocks from the hobby over time, making lines less and less unique and different from each other. All coloration norms mentioned here are for adults, unless otherwise specified. Hisser nymphs of even pure stock can vary wildly in coloration, and thus their coloration usually

I don't think Flamingswampert was offended but then I also don't know what his/her short, non-descript message meant. I think it meant ignore the chatter but it could mean feathers are lighter than stones. I don't remember anyone questioning the validity of the extinct designation before but of course we still can't prove big dinosaurs are extinct with 100% certainty. I recall a movie suggesting a lost world full of them is in the hollow earth beneath an artificial sun. There maybe some Simandoa there too.

First time ever available in electronic format. Available through Coachwhip Books https://coachwhip.com/collections/invertebrate-pets/products/invertebrates-magazine-2001-2002 there are dozens of cockroach articles and features.

Hi! This is my report on a finding of an unidentified Perisphaerus sp. from South China, more specifically Macau Special Administrative Region (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau). 1st March 2020, during one of my night anting (looking for ant queens), i found two small isopod looking cockroaches, one I was able to capture, the other one, escaped into the the existing crevices. It was my first local caught cockroach, but back then i had no idea what it was, and so I posted in facebook and someone helped if it as Perisphaerus sp. In an attempt to id the species, i contacte

Thanks. My plan was for this setup to emulate a tree fall in a tropical forest with rotting wood habitat and some of the plants you would find in that kind of situation. This kind of habitat is always a good place to find insects and other invertebrates as well. I placed a particular emphasis on vining plants because many of these are characteristic of forest openings. There are also a lot of botanically-interesting vines to collect and grow. Here is a quick list with most of the plants in there... Aristolochia macroura Banisteriopsis caapi Cissus antarctica Ficus sagit

I'd say remember to feed and water them regularly, it may not seem like great advice but care is usually the only really important thing. I also recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Cockroaches-Husbandry-Biology-Blattodea/dp/1616464275

Congrats on getting this beautiful species! Though Orin and Peter are the definitive experts on them in the hobby, I've been keeping them for about 7 months now, with a fair amount of success. The starting culture I work with is quite large due to its long term purpose, but I know of people who have successfully been able to culture large amounts out of groups as small as six. You'll get anywhere from 15-30 babies out of one successful pairing, though god knows it takes a while. In most cases adulthood takes about 8 months to reach, and gestation ranges 3-5. I have been told however, that thes

Earlier this week, I was presented with 7 middle aged nymphs Therea nuptialis (Gerstaecker, 1861). This species is very rare in culture, and for me, collecting Corydiinae, this is a very desirable acquisition. I hope that after the nymphs enter the imago, I will be able to get a sufficient number of ootheca and consolidate the species in my culture.

I do think any Therea species would look awesome in there, willing you have many adults in there at once, just unfortunate they don't live long once mature, which may leave the enclosure looking empty for a while. Also maybe some Lucihormetica or Hormetica like you said would be nice. I find my adult Lucihormetica verrucosa like to hang out on the surface on top of bark and such, but I do have a good amount of adults in one enclosure, and it might just be they are a bit crowded. Other than that maybe some large Blaberus species like Blaberus giganteus or even Archimandrita species

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Relatively easy species to breed and care for.

These were collected from Tampa, FL. They have similar color to Ocala strain, but adult females develop yellow spots on the margin of their abdomen.

Happy Earth Day!!! 🌎 Hopefully the earth soars when we are set free just like this Crane Fly did. 😁 ft. Noah Campos New Video

Gotta agree with you there, those Tardigrades put all roaches to shame. The "roaches can survive nuclear radiation" statement is true, but every arthropod can resist radiation. If any arthropod would claim the Earth, it would be the ants, with their complex hives and specialized casts. But roaches IMO still are the best to keep, as long as you have that barrier

Cockroaches are resilient and all, but their resistance to nuclear radiation is a bit exaggerated I think... If any animal group could be considered the "chosen ones", it's gotta be Tardigrades, those things can survive the vacuum of space and are quite radiation resistant.

Definitely the "Venom" morph of the Periplaneta americana. The jet-black body and pale white eyes have a great contrast. (Kyle has them if you want some for yourself)

Well, poultry feed....every variety....non-medicated, organic, non-gmo....all have DL Methionine in it. (many have Diatomaceous Earth too...another known pesticide) Poultry feed producers put it in there purposely because it makes for meatier poultry, and the birds grow faster. A read of the patent by the University of Florida clearly shows its effects on insects/larvae with an alkaline gut physiology.....this includes the cockroach. With all due respect, noting your extensive experience, line breeding for the Blaptica dubia cockroach is an urban myth. If there was any genetic diversity

Actually it's ammonia buildup because they don't bind it in uric acid but even if they understood what they were talking about they'd be wrong.

Thanks Martin. I've always wanted to get an electronic version up but I couldn't convert the old files to something usable and didn't have anyone who would be able to host them. I'm not sure I would have the money and certainly not the time to build and pay for a hosting platform. Coachwhip gave the opportunity to get them up just a week or two ago. They are combined and translated from 2000.pub files (2 or 3 files per issue) and each file is 25-65 MB which you still can't send in an e-mail. The reason for multiple files and why the oldest ones have b/w pics in the text is the color ones took

A few days ago, several adults and about two dozen Elliptorhina coquereliana (Saussure, 1863) nymphs from Moscow will come to me. They were caught in the north of Madagascar - the natural range of this species. Earlier, I carried out identification using material from this culture (external morphology and preparation of the genitals). Based on this data, I can confidently say that the culture is Elliptorhina coquereliana. Photo of a adult male:

Agreed... but yet again it seems the autocorrect has struck me down! And embarrassed me on the internet... I have no idea what it autocorrected to US, but I originally said "for the roach hobby" (at least before my computer decided that it writes better than I do)

I've heard these are being cultured in Europe, such a nice species! 😍 Another hisser that will hopefully make it to the US hobby in time, hopefully they aren't too difficult to culture! Best of luck breeding them! 😁

Technically they did. people get around it by saying things like: "I have such-and-such. PM me" As long as there isn't a price in the post or the words selling or buying, they can get away with it.

Hello everyone, FlamingSwampert here! I just wanted to introduce myself. You may/may not know me from the Arachnoboards forum, or from many other places. I am getting into the roach hobby, so I decided to join this forum! I plan on getting many more species once it becomes warmer, but currently I only have Dubia Roaches. Other than roaches, I have a Painted Agama named Rocky, and a plethora of isopods, beetles, millipedes, and fish. I have also kept stag beetles and mantises, but all of my individuals sadly died. I love all roaches (and animals), but my favorite spec

Thanks! I already know that this is one of my favorite forums! I'm super hyped to roach-out with everyone!

December 2020 Invertebrates Magazine Issue This issue we begin with a relative freshman to Pachnoda culture introduced to us by Hes of Sklipkan arthropod magazine fame (sklipkan means spider, or more specifically tarantula, in the Czech Republic). Next, we look at culturing a pretty, little, Nearctic tortoise beetle, 2020’s imports of camel-spiders out of Egypt, and a contender for the largest of the terrestrial isopods, Titan A. E. (After Entomology as crustaceans have taken over the bug hobby). We review three decades of experiences keeping the heaviest non-colonial invertebrates on ear

Bantua sp. Namibia Corydidarum magnifica (Shelford, 1907) Corydidarum pygmaea (Karny, 1915) Corydidarum tarsalis (Walker, 1868) Hyposphaeria sp. South Africa Pseudoglomeris glomeris (Saussure, 1863) Pseudoglomeris terranea (Walker, 1871) and several more indeterminate Perisphaerus species from Southeast Asia. This is what different keepers have.

They eat

Quite excited to find a roach forum.:) Forums in general seem to be dying out :(, but there obviously still is good stuff to be found I've been keeping invertebrates of various kinds for over two decades now. My main interest are arachnids, but all arthropods are cool. My first roach was some South American species that I planned to feed to my tarantula, but it turned out to be so very cute, I simply couldn't! After that I've kept on and off a handful of different species. ATM I have only A. tessellata. I'm growing them as pets and also, if they start breeding well, to

Therea are very interesting cockroaches, however, like all Corydiinae. T. bernhardti, T. olegranjeani live with me and relatively recently, I acquired T. regularis. So far, these are ten teenage nymphs. A very beautiful view, of course, but I like T. olegranjeani the most of them

Because of the cold weather front that has hit Macau recently, the temperature drop has made all my roach bins halt their external activity. The room is now at 20C during daytime and dropping at night to 15C. Most of the roaches are now underground or hiding. The Yamato Nymphs are congregating in two separate groups under some leaves. You can take a quick peek as I expose them to the light, on the link down below. Video Lovely yellow coloration don't you think?

I ended up with babies

I meant to do this a long time ago and totally forgot. I got started in late 2018 raising Dubia roaches for my son's lizard. I'd had reptiles, chelonians and such in the past but never inverts. The roaches turned out to be more interesting than reptiles to me, and my son started collecting bugs and getting interested in entomology. The combination of a move to a larger house with dedicated office/invert space and time at home due to the pandemic really accelerated my acquisition of new species. Tracking them down is really fun, but I enjoy raising them as well. It's quite rela

I don't think I've shared this specimen here before.

Hello! Nice to meet you all and thank you for accepting my membership. First of all, I never thought I would be keeping roaches for pets. But now I am. I am an ant keeper he saw himself one day having to order a small colony of red runners, to be able to feed my colonies with diverse sized roaches. Once that colony was exhausted, i ordered another one, and another one, until one day, I decided i should keep them constantly to save money and overcome the winter time where all my colonies would struggle for feeder insects. From those, I jumped by chance to domino roaches, a

An adult male

I was lucky enough to see hundreds of these on a hike. Interestingly, only 6 of the ones I saw were females.

The sky

Hello everyone, Just wanted to check in. Its been awhile since I've been on here. Lots of changes happened. I moved to new state, new career, etc. I'm slowly starting to get my life around once again. Hopefully I can start breeding roaches once more. I miss having my roach colonies that I had to rehome due to relocating. Hope all is well with everyone. Have a good Day.

Chick starter has DL Methionine in it...a man made synthetic chemical meant to replicate naturally occurring "Methionine" which is one of the essential amino acid proteins necessary for most life here on earth. It has been patented by the University of Florida as a "green" pesticide targeting insects with an alkaline gut physiology including termites, mosquitos, caterpillar/larvae, and our beloved cockroach....among others. It has been sprayed on stored grain for years, hence the reason you will find it in everything from Guinea Pig food, to Tortoise food. Its primary addition is to poultry fe

Super interesting and helpful. Also, the topic is kind of fascinating. I wonder what we will know about hissers in another 20 years. Our understanding of the various species may be very different.

All I can say is wow. This is amazing information for everyone out there. Thank you for taking the time to post this. Amazing work!

@Hisserdude has before. You can read about some general Eleodes care with a tad of specialized information for E.armata towards the end right here.

For The Love Of Cockroaches is indispensable BTW. I don't think I would have gotten into the hobby without it.

Orangeheads…..I have huge colonies that have never had supplemental heat. They actually generate their own heat.....

My Polyphaga always did this, (a lot of my burrowing roaches did actually), problem is, even if you got a deep substrate, they do like digging to the absolute bottom, so there will always be some down there scratching away... Moving the container to a place where you can't hear them as much would be your best bet, I personally just got used to the scratching.

Eleodes obscura (adult female): Eleodes nigrina (adult female):

Hello! I want to show you some of my more uncommon [here in Europe] roach species. My foto size reduction is slightly better than in my last topic and I will further try to improve this. Melanozosteria nitida BRUNNER VON WATTENWYL 1865 (from Khai Sok in Thailand) Only under lights more redish than black, but look at the defensive secretion on their last abdominal segments. They are incredible fast runners. Thorax porcellana SAUSSURE 1862 (from India and Sri Lanka) Beautyful species from the Epilamprinae subfamily. Most fascinating ar