Good evening, everyone!
My cockroach collection has recently been upgraded from 16 species to 25. let's check them out.
Someone recently reached out to me via Instagram for a trade. This is the second trade I've ever done and my first time shipping - which by the way, means I now have shipping available for those that wish to purchase any roaches from me (yay!). I'm keeping his name anonymous as I believe he prefers to be private. We'll call him George (funny name hehe).
George asked for some Panchlora sp. "Little Manatee River, FL" and Neostylopaga rhombifolia and in exchange he sent me some Hemiblabera roseni and Pycnoscelus striatus.
Here's one of the roseni. Cute little bugger. Sadly no pics of the striatus. They burrowed themselves then were never seen again.
I also sent him some p. nigra, just a few, since I noticed he didn't have any on his list. Turned out his colony recently died out and he was wanting some more, so I'm glad that worked out for him! In turn he gave me a bag of dried banana leaves which was awesome which I didn't know was a a thing. They really add some aesthetic to the enclosures!
Before that, though, someone else, someone local, reached out to me for an in-person trade. We met up at our local reptile expo, the Hamburg Reptile Expo. That was Photosyntheticpods. He wanted some of my Panchlora spp. and Oxyhaloa deusta. He was looking for Panchlora sp. "speckled" and "Guadalupe", but both of my colonies of those crashed, with only a couple individuals left of each. We ended up agreeing on a trade of Oxyhaloa deusta and whatever I had left of my Panchlora spp. for Euthyrrhapha pacifica. I wasn't looking for E. pacifica, but I hadn't kept a micro species before, so I said screw it why not. Turns out I actually had a good enough amount of individuals of the "speckled" and "Guadalupe" to revive the colony, but I decided to just gave them all to him. I've no interest in them and he really wanted them, so it was a no-brainer.
These guys are so small and so elusive it was hard getting a picture, but here's a quick shot of an adult E. pacifica.
He, his sister and I grouped up and walked around the expo together. Was great getting to know him and his sister!
I recently put in my first order with InvertebrateDude. You know him. You love him. Mr TJ himself. I've bought roaches from TJ before but it was through Kyle's auction. TJ's collection is outstanding. He's usually my first choice when I need roaches because his quality control and I.D standard is unmatched. You all know this already, of course. Why am I wasting your time? Let's look at the goods.
Up first, Opisthoplatia orientalis, the Black and Red/Korean roach. To be honest with you, knowing what kind of roaches these are, they'd be the last species I'd look to get (they're not pests, but they are pest-ish), but I've been entranced by their coloration/patterning since I first stepped into the hobby. Soooo easy choice. Right now they're all tiny tiny nymphs. Hopefully they grow quick!
Next is Ergaula cf. silphoides, the Big Black Beetle Mimic, and specifically it's the "Old Hobby Stock". Who doesn't love the chunky, round bois?
If I'm remembering correctly these guys get bigger than the sand roaches. So these are amongst the biggest of round bois.
Speaking of sand roaches, I grabbed the ever popular Polyphaga aegyptica. If you're like Mason, you just pronounced that in your head with a no-no word! Iykyk. Lol.
These guys are supposedly hardier than p. saussurei, which I hope proves true as my starter colony of p. saussurei is mysteriously dwindling. My largest individual, which hadn't fully matured yet, died off for some reason, including a handful of smaller nymphs. 😞 Sad times.
Aegyptica don't get as large as saussurei but they're just as fascinating!
Moving on we have two coveted species, both in the Perisphaerus genus. They're black, some species are arboreal, and they look oddly similar to pill bugs. Made your guess yet?
It's Perisphaerus punctatus and horainus, also known as roly-poly roaches! I ordered the punctatus and the horainus were a freebie.
Punctatus:
Horainus:
I'm siked for all of these roaches but I am especially siked for these guys. Martin has a wonderfully detailed article about punctatus in particular that mentions how females only need to mate once to have continuous broods throughout a year. That's handy considering how the males live half to less-than-half of the female's lifespan. TJ mentions how, when starting a colony, males may need to be sexed early and separated from the females to be kept in a cooler environment, so that their maturity stages will be synced up. If I start to notice any problems with my colony, I may try his method.
Last but not least, I ordered a new hisser species. Princisia Vanwaerebeki "Big/Black - 2017 CCR", AKA the Vibrant Hisser. When I bought my hissing cockroach print from Carim Nahaboo, I started to admire vanwaerebeki, as they were one of the few largest species of hissers. I decided I had to have them in my collection and I settled on TJ's stock of the "Big/Black", which is the basal form of the species.
The hissing cockroaches are likely the most popular group of cockroaches in the hobby, and they're certainly the most outstanding. I would like to collect every species if I can, even if I don't have interest in certain species. I just think it would be impressive to collect every known species from one group; like they're pokemon or something lol.
So in total I recently added 9 new species to my collection within the past 3 months.
Hemiblabera roseni
Pycnoscelus striatus
Euthyrrhapha pacifica
Ergaula cg. silphoides
Opisthoplatia orientalis
Polyphaga aegyptica
Perisphaerus punctatus
Perisphaerus horainus
Princisia vanwaerebeki
Huge shoutout to George, PhotosyntheticPods and InvertebrateDude for the trades and order. Your specimens are beautiful and I'm grateful to add them to my collection!
