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Last new colony of the year 2020 has arrived - Diploptera puntacta Nymph Photos Quite excited for this species. I really love when roaches mimic other insects! First things I have noticed: 1 - the musky smell inside the box. Not sure if the smell is from the release of any defensive chemicals from the shaking of the box during transportation or if this is their "natural" smell. 2 - their speed and climbing of walls... bloody hell... i wasn't expecting that for small nymphs. They are quite bold. Normally other nymphs will quickly run under the leaves or substrate to hide after being exposed. Well not these ones! After being re-house, and without warning they all started climbing the walls and trying to escape! All Hell was set loose in less than one minute! 3 - Very difficult to photograph! Exposed to the open, they keep running and running endlessly... the only chances I had was when i would touch their antennae and the oils in my hand would bother their senses... they would stop and lick the antennae for few seconds and then start running again. You can see in one of the photos, the nymphs cleaning itself up. Well, that is all for now! I will keep you posted on this colony development! Cheers

So this might be old news to some of you, but just in case, I thought I'd reiterate some findings made a couple years back by the taxonomist Dominic Evangelista, and prominent European blatticulturist @Nicolas Rousseaux of the Cafarnarium. You can read the original post here on Facebook, but I figured I'd copy and paste the important parts here on the forum for those who don't frequent FB: Identification by D. Evangelista, based on animals reared in captivity, mainly strains from the Cafarnarium: Diploptera punctata ==> Diploptera cf. minor Uncertain, but it's obviously not Diploptera punctata, and Diploptera minor seems very close. Ischnoptera sp. “Costa Rica” ==> Ischnoptera rufa “Costa Rica" Symploce macroptera ==> Symploce incuriosa Other changes: Eublaberus sp. "Ivory" ==> Eublaberus cf. distanti "Ivory" Unconfirmed opinion from D. Evangelista. Eublaberus sp. “Pantanal, Mato Grosso, Brazil” ==> Eublaberus cf. serranus “Brazil, Mato Grosso, Pantanal” Currently discussed on specialised forum. Gromphadorhina sp. "Ranomafana" ==> Gromphadorhina cf. portentosa "Madagascar, Ranomafana" The most probable species. Hemithyrsocera histrio ==> Hemithyrsocera vittata Now I've seen TYPES from these two species at the Museum, it's IMPOSSIBLE it's H. histrio. H. vittata, in picture (don't pay attention to the label, wich refers to an other individual in the box, bad framing due to the excitation of the situation) is highly, highly probable. Panesthia angustipennis angustipennis ==> Panesthia angustipennis angustipennis “Roth’s original stock” As this strain is diferent from other Panesthia angustipennis angustipennis and looks like Panesthia angustipennis cognata, this precision seems necessary. They are the descendants from the stock of Louis M. Roth.