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Orange Spotted Roach Natural History & Care


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Hi, Frank Indiviglio here. I’m a herpetologist, zoologist, and book author, recently retired from a career spent at several zoos, aquariums, and museums, including over 20 years with the Bronx Zoo

The orange-spotted or guyana roach, Blaptica dubia, often starts out as pet food but winds up as a pet. It’s small wonder, as these attractive insects are very interesting in their own right, and most agreeable to exhibiting their natural behaviors to the patient observer.

Coming into Their Own

Roaches are finally getting the attention they deserve from pet keepers, and even zoos are beginning to highlight them in exhibits. I housed many species at the Staten Island Zoo, and a new exhibit at the Bronx Zoo features a hollow tree stocked with thousands of Malagasy hissing roaches. But my favorite was set up many years ago at the Cincinnati Zoo’s groundbreaking Insectarium….visitors looked through a cutaway cabinet at a “kitchen” stocked with a colony American roaches. The huge insects were fed from cereal boxes, sandwiches left on a table and so forth…years later I tried to replicate this at the Bronx Zoo, for Norway rats, but the idea failed to impress my curator! Read the rest of this article here http://bit.ly/1sU3KOc

Please also check out my posts on Twitter http://bitly.com/JP27Nj and Facebook http://on.fb.me/KckP1m

My Bio, with photos of animals I’ve been lucky enough to work with: http://bitly.com/LC8Lbp

Best Regards, Frank

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  • 3 weeks later...

Frank, thanks for the reading material.

Being from SI, the invert section of the SI Zoo was the first place I headed. I often thought about volunteering for that section, now that I'm retired. ;)

Thanks..sorry for the delay, email notices of posts are not arriving for some reason. I consulted on the renovation of the reptile wing awhile back, very nice group of people there, and the supervisor is invert-oriented. I hope they expamnd the collection over time. Please keep me posted; have a nice Thanksgiving, Frank

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