Will they cross-breed?

[KitKatie329]

I'm putting together a show tank and I would like to know if E. posticus and E. distanti will cross breed if housed together. If they will (this is something I would like to avoid) what are some of my other choices for housing with E. distanti? All of the species I have are listed in my signature. TIA.

 

[vfox]

I house Eublaberus distanti, prosticus, and "ivory" in the same container. They won't cross breed but the mixed bunch slows down breeding quite a bit.

 

[KitKatie329]

Oooh, thank you for that info! Out of curiosity, why does it slow down breeding? Resource fighting?

 

[vfox]

Oooh, thank you for that info! Out of curiosity, why does it slow down breeding? Resource fighting?

To be honest I'm not entirely sure. The orange heads still bred fairly well in the mixed tank but their numbers were the highest. The distanti and ivory barely bred at all but I only have half a dozen adults of each. I would imagine it's from overcrowding of one species and fighting for the best resources. I'm likely going to pull my distanti and ivory and give each their own container until their numbers are up. Once they are stabilized I'm going to put them back in the same housing.

 

[Zephyr]

The answer is that they will not cross-breed, however, keeping them together will favor one species over the other.

In the wild, E. distanti (although from the photos I've seen they were actually confused with E. sp. "Ivory", but the two seem to have identical care needs) is found in the drier areas near the entrances of bat caves. E. posticus is found further in the caves in moist chambers. I've only seen these things measured qualitatively but my guess is that if the observer noted one area as "dry" and the other as "moist" there was a distinct difference between the two.

 

[KitKatie329]

Thanks for the information. I'm going to give it a go and if I see one species dropping off (which now I suspect will happen) then I will separate them again.