Blaptica dubia "Roachcrossing Gold Morph"

[Hisserdude]

Kyle's unnamed gold morph, re-isolated from a EU "Gold" line crossed back to normal dubias, for improved vigor (since the EU Gold lines tend to have lots of health issues and exoskeleton defects). Pretty, though not as striking as @ForgotMyLogin's "Amber" dubia line. 😄

[ForgotMyLogin]

The wings on that male are amazing. You can see right through them. 

[Hisserdude]

On 7/31/2022 at 7:30 AM, ForgotMyLogin said:

The wings on that male are amazing. You can see right through them. 

Yeah, the males look very pretty for sure, super pale. Females are darker, but still not normal dubia colored.

[ForgotMyLogin]

From what I've been able to tell, the "dark" color is actually just thick black stripes, so thick that they overlap making it appear black. So when you breed smaller and smaller stripes the actual color of the beetle shows through. It looks like that female has a totally different color chitin than the Amber, but the stripes haven't been breed down yet. It looks to me, off hand, that specific coloration is nearly clear and honey colored, likely yielding a very interesting morph. I've found 6 different stripes (3 on the top, 3 on the bottom) that determine how thick the stripes are, and therefore how dark any specific individual is. The markings and coloration on the pronotum are completely independent from the abdomen coloration from what I can tell. Some are red with amber bodies while others are entirely black with amber bodies,  and even others are half and half (top to bottom).

[Hisserdude]

On 8/1/2022 at 1:50 PM, ForgotMyLogin said:

From what I've been able to tell, the "dark" color is actually just thick black stripes, so thick that they overlap making it appear black. So when you breed smaller and smaller stripes the actual color of the beetle shows through. It looks like that female has a totally different color chitin than the Amber, but the stripes haven't been breed down yet. It looks to me, off hand, that specific coloration is nearly clear and honey colored, likely yielding a very interesting morph. I've found 6 different stripes (3 on the top, 3 on the bottom) that determine how thick the stripes are, and therefore how dark any specific individual is. The markings and coloration on the pronotum are completely independent from the abdomen coloration from what I can tell. Some are red with amber bodies while others are entirely black with amber bodies,  and even others are half and half (top to bottom).

Ah OK, interesting. So with selective breeding, might be able to get something really odd out of these "Roachcrossing Golds" then... 🤔 Good to know, thanks for the insight!

[ForgotMyLogin]

I wonder if enclosing that light winged male  with 3 Amber females for a cycle, then selecting 3-5 females from that F1 group (probably best of 25) that have the honey color and the smallest stripes and breeding them back to 2 different Amber males. If that resulting line would have enough variety that you could pull from and not risk inbreeding depression... it would only work if the light wing gene is carried by the females...

[Hisserdude]

Got babies from these! 😁 Here's some pics of the babies, plus some better pictures of a couple adult females: