'Giant' hissers?

fangsalot said:
can that be done?
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Certainly....careful breeding, using only uncommonly large specimens should, in theory, produce a number of larger than typical offspring...do this for a few generations, and a bloodline that is almost all atypically large individuals should result.

has it been done?
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No idea, but if I could get my hands on a decent colony of G. portentosa here, I would be working on it right now.

 
G. oblongonata lines produce 5" males commonly. This appears to be the "giant morph" for that species, with the normal males about the size of the "giant morph" and just plain big G. portentosa.

**EDIT- MY BAD. 4". Curse sleep deprivation!!!

 
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Zephyr said:
G. oblongonata lines produce 5" males commonly. This appears to be the "giant morph" for that species, with the normal males about the size of the "giant morph" and just plain big G. portentosa.
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i just had a few of my oblonganata males mature,and i have to say,im not that impressed.one is pretty big but the others are about the size of small mature portentosas.i was expecting HUGE adults.

 
You may not have oblongonotas. Or have hybrids. True ones (at least in my purebred colony) normally get 3"-3.5" plus. 5 inches has never been recorded, and so far the worlds largest roach I believe is a new species found in central China that get to be 4.7 inches.

 
Matt K said:
You may not have oblongonotas. Or have hybrids. True ones (at least in my purebred colony) normally get 3"-3.5" plus. 5 inches has never been recorded, and so far the worlds largest roach I believe is a new species found in central China that get to be 4.7 inches.
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heres pics of my biggest male http://www.roachforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2720 they were sold to me as oblonganatas,and they look it to me,do they look it to you?hes the size i kind of expected an oblonganata to be(was hoping for bigger though)the others are maybe half his size.

 
Looks like one in general, and it may or may not be fully grown either. Ive had them appear like that only to molt again and have larger 'horns'. How long is that one in the photo?

 
Matt K said:
Looks like one in general, and it may or may not be fully grown either. Ive had them appear like that only to molt again and have larger 'horns'. How long is that one in the photo?
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ide say 3 1/2" if they sometimes molt after they appear adult,like youve seen them do before ,then thats great news.the reason i went with oblonganatas is for the impressive size.that would suck if i end up with portentosa sizes.plus,i wanted to try to select breed some monster oblonganatas.

 
Toirtis said:
<!--quoteo(post=11538:date=Jun 12 2010, 06:49 PM:name=fangsalot)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fangsalot @ Jun 12 2010, 06:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=11538"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->can that be done?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Certainly....careful breeding, using only uncommonly large specimens should, in theory, produce a number of larger than typical offspring...do this for a few generations, and a bloodline that is almost all atypically large individuals should result.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->has it been done?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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In theory, yes, but in my opinion it still would take decades (probably longer) to double the size. I raised hissers for about 15 years and would continually pull out the smaller ones and keep the larger but I saw no significant change in size. The largest hisser I was ever able to produce was between 3.5 & 4 inches. I wonder if continual inbreeding hinders size changes?

The color variations were a different story. I saw wildly different color variations from golden to redish to dark brown to almost completely black. I didn't do this as any kind of scientific experiment, I was just trying to raise big, healthy hissers to feed & sell. I wish I had a digital camera early on. I just didn't take that many prior to digital and a few years back, a hard drive crash wiped out a lot of the digital ones I did have from later on.

 
i just got a adult pair of adult G. oblonganatas from roach crossing. impressive roaches! very easy to handle. i can pick up the male without him hissing if I'm gentle. he seems to like sitting there just waving his antennae. mine has more black than the ones in the pic and has bigger horns. fiance calls him harry! he's a bulky fellow at a hair over 4in. ill probably let them breed as they are nice big specimens and so doclie. they should make great pets! id post a pics but I'm terrible w/ technology.

 
if you like big roaches, check out A. tessalltia, the giant peppered roach. they aren't as long as the wide horn hissers or the giant cave roach but are much wider and look bigger. like little tanks! got a bunch of subadults and large hymphs from doc on here. they are awesome to behold as well and are also easy to handle. they are a slower grower so id try to buy large nymphs or sub adults. unless you want to wait over 6 months for them to mature! got mine and 3 of them were already 3in. and they don't have their wings yet!

 
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i could but I'm terrible at posting pics! not very computer savvy.

 
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