Rhypharobia maderae "goldi"

[BugmanPrice]

Is this a true breeding color morph, different species, or another one of the unidentified labeled species?

[PeriplanetaAmericana]

Hello,

It´s a color morph, like B. craniifer "BW".

Best regards,

Javier.

[Allpet Roaches]

Actually, it's nothing like "B. craniifer BW". That reference is a naturally occuring geographic race or species originally described as Blaberus trapezoideus and later synonymized by Roth.

The Rhypharobia "goldi" were collected in Malaysia but other species in that genus are only found (naturally) in Africa so it's most likely introduced. It was never described as a different species but isn't necessarily R. maderae.

[BugmanPrice]

Ah, thank you!

Actually, it's nothing like "B. craniifer BW". That reference is a naturally occuring geographic race or species originally described as Blaberus trapezoideus and later synonymized by Roth.

The Rhypharobia "goldi" were collected in Malaysia but other species in that genus are only found (naturally) in Africa so it's most likely introduced. It was never described as a different species but isn't necessarily R. maderae.

[BugmanPrice]

Hello,

It´s a color morph, like B. craniifer "BW".

Best regards,

Javier.

Here is an old post by Orin that I saved if anyone else is confused:

No matter what the take on taxonomy, there is certainly only one true Death's head as depicted at the top of this thread.

*The photographs you posted aren't set up to be remotely loaded so try changing them to links (you can only see them because they are in your cache).

If you have the pure black wings you can be 100% certain you have B. craniifer because no other Blaberus has that coloration, otherwise you could have one of numerous species since coloration is variable and similar in many Blaberus. With another coloration the only way to be sure of a correct species designation for any specific stock is to send a male off to a taxonomist for dissection and analysis of the male genitalia. If only for the sake of keeping the true Death's Head coloration and fusca colorations separate it's a poor idea to label everything that's a similar size 'whatever winged' craniifer. Blaberus fusca is the same as what many Europeans call light-winged craniifer. Some taxonomists consider fusca a synonym of craniifer because the male genitalia are similar. The tendency for various things to be labeled B.craniifer is what caused all the hybrids that exist in the hobby today (something labeled 'craniifer' were placed with the definite B. craniifer depicted at the top of this thread). This is a fact, the hybrids all originally came from Roachman --just under ten years ago-- who put European 'craniifer' in with the US black wing/ B.craniifer stock because he thought they were the same thing (they were labeled the same anyway). Hybrids are still hybrids even if it were a cross between different races or subspecies. I know exactly what the original B.craniifer he had were because I know where he got them from. Of course nobody can know if the things from Europe he crossed were in fact an ugly race of B.craniifer or a related species or if the various critters sold in Europe are all B.craniifer or if some are and others are a few different species all labeled B.craniifer.

Someone said that the Black wings are a morph, then that's not the base stock? The terms morph and base stock don't apply. Black wings are a pure, non-variable wild coloration.

[PeriplanetaAmericana]

Hello,

Thanks Orin, I didn´t know this information about R. maderae "Gold" and B. craniifer "BW".

Best regards,

Javier.