50th Post!: Tinley Park NARBC Expo

All About Arthropods

All About Arthropods

Elliptorhina
Last edited by a moderator:
NARBC was great this year! I unfortunately wasn't able to make it out until today, but I found Kyle's booth and spent a couple hours chatting with him and walked away with several new roach species.

 
It sure was! That's too bad, would have been nice to meet you as well! Glad you were able to pick up some new roaches, what species did you purchase?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Would have been nice to meet you too! I got:

A. tonkawa (new)

P. aegyptiaca (new)

G. lurida "yellow" (new, though I have obscene numbers of the regular morph that I need to start selling)

E. capucina (kept in the past, but didn't have any until yesterday)

G. centurio (more numbers to bolster my now colony)

Pure line G. portentosa

Pretty good haul I'd say and it was nice to pick up a few nice intermediate species. Came really close to splitting a pair of L. grossei with another roacher who was eyeing them, but that ended up not happening. The Linothele fallax and L. megatheloides were really nice too and I thought about buying those as well since I haven't kept diplurids in a couple years.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
And just to make it easy and answer hisserdude's question, the P. obscura was labeled P. cf obscura since Kyle isn't sure about it. The guy who sent it to him said it was but Kyle wasn't completely convinced. Contemplated picking that one up, but ended up not doing it in case it was just another P. saussurei which I already have several of. In terms of size, it was about as big as P. saussurei, but I'm not sure if it was an adult or not.

 
pannaking22 said:
And just to make it easy and answer hisserdude's question, the P. obscura was labeled P. cf obscura since Kyle isn't sure about it. The guy who sent it to him said it was but Kyle wasn't completely convinced. Contemplated picking that one up, but ended up not doing it in case it was just another P. saussurei which I already have several of. In terms of size, it was about as big as P. saussurei, but I'm not sure if it was an adult or not.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I've wondered myself if the P.obscura in the hobby are just P.saussurei, seeing as the only photos of the "P.obscura" that I've seen look exactly like P.saussurei. Thanks for the info man, I appreciate it! :)

 
pannaking22 said:
Would have been nice to meet you too! I got:

A. tonkawa (new)

P. aegyptiaca (new)

G. lurida "yellow" (new, though I have obscene numbers of the regular morph that I need to start selling)

E. capucina (kept in the past, but didn't have any until yesterday)

G. centurio (more numbers to bolster my now colony)

Pure line G. portentosa

Pretty good haul I'd say and it was nice to pick up a few nice intermediate species. Came really close to splitting a pair of L. grossei with another roacher who was eyeing them, but that ended up not happening. The Linothele fallax and L. megatheloides were really nice too and I thought about buying those as well since I haven't kept diplurids in a couple years.
Click to expand...
Nice! Do the pure G.portentosa look any different than the normal Gromphadorhina sp."Hybrid."?

 
pannaking22 said:
And just to make it easy and answer hisserdude's question, the P. obscura was labeled P. cf obscura since Kyle isn't sure about it. The guy who sent it to him said it was but Kyle wasn't completely convinced. Contemplated picking that one up, but ended up not doing it in case it was just another P. saussurei which I already have several of. In terms of size, it was about as big as P. saussurei, but I'm not sure if it was an adult or not.
Click to expand...
Forgot the cf part! Yeah, wouldn't want to blow $100 on a possible P.saussurei.

 
Hisserdude said:
Interesting, I've wondered myself if the P.obscura in the hobby are just P.saussurei, seeing as the only photos of the "P.obscura" that I've seen look exactly like P.saussurei. Thanks for the info man, I appreciate it! :)
Click to expand...
You bet, happy to help! :) I wonder if there's any size difference? Kyle had made it sound like they got quite a bit larger, but even he wasn't sure about that since any real hobby details on that species are sketchy at best.

All About Insects said:
Nice! Do the pure G.portentosa look any different than the normal Gromphadorhina sp."Hybrid."?
Click to expand...
They're still pretty small, so only time will tell! The adults are supposed to be pure black and massive compared to the hybrids, so I'm really looking forward to when they reach adulthood!

All About Insects said:
Update on the blog post: Sexed the E.sinensis"White Eye" and it looks like I've got 14 females and 8 males!
Click to expand...
Congrats, sounds like you're well on your way to (eventually) having a big colony!

 
pannaking22 said:
They're still pretty small, so only time will tell! The adults are supposed to be pure black and massive compared to the hybrids, so I'm really looking forward to when they reach adulthood!

Congrats, sounds like you're well on your way to (eventually) having a big colony!
Click to expand...
Wow, that's awesome! Definitely interested in seeing pics of them as they grow!

Thanks!

Have you see either of these videos Hisserdude?

The roaches in the video are supposed to be P.obscura, they seem pretty massive, do P.saussurei get that large as adults?

 
All About Insects said:
Wow, that's awesome! Definitely interested in seeing pics of them as they grow!

Thanks!

Have you see either of these videos Hisserdude?

Click to expand...
I think saw those videos a long time ago, but had forgotten about them until now. The quality of the videos are too low to see any real details, they look a little bigger than the P.saussurei I've seen, but not by much. Anyway, I thought P.obscura was supposed to be smaller than P.saussurei?

BTW, your signature is a little messed up atm, a ton of space after the list of your inverts plus the blogger tool button at the bottom.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hisserdude said:
I think saw those videos a long time ago, but had forgotten about them until now. The quality of the videos are too low to see any real details, they look a little bigger than the P.saussurei I've seen, but not by much. Anyway, I thought P.obscura was supposed to be smaller than P.saussurei?

BTW, your signature is a little messed up atm, a ton of space after the list of your inverts plus the blogger tool button at the bottom.
Click to expand...
I thought pannaking said that P.obscura were larger, now I'm confused! :wacko:

Thanks, I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, fixed it now.

 
All About Insects said:
I thought pannaking said that P.obscura were larger, now I'm confused! :wacko:

Thanks, I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, fixed it now.
Click to expand...
Panna said that Kyle says they get bigger, but wasn't sure because details of P.obscura in the hobby are sketchy, and they sure are. From what I've read in Orin's new book, P.obscura is smaller than P.saussurei, but on this European breeder's website, it states that P.obscura get larger than P.saussurei. Who knows what the truth is, or if the two stocks "obscura" and "saussurei" are even two different species? The fact that there are two very similar looking species in the hobby, and that both stocks happen to be parthenogenic strains of species that normally have males seems a little fishy to me, seems more likely to me that they are the same species, and that stock got split into two different names just because of size difference. That's just a theory of mine though, I could be wrong.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Salmonsaladsandwich said:
Wait, pure G. portentosa are pure black and massive?

http://www.roachcros.../common-hisser/
Click to expand...
Hmmm, either he has a black strain like Hisserdude said, or I misheard him while looking at other species. Regardless, looking forward to them growing and seeing what they're like as adults!

Hisserdude said:
Perhaps he's got a black strain of pure hissers? 'Cause normal pure hissers are supposed to be solid orange color, at least that's what Kyle says, my hybrids are more of a dull brown in most specimens.
Click to expand...
I've found the the hybrids at my university are all across the board color-wise, but they've also had at least a decade to breed and I don't how often, if ever, new genes are added.

Hisserdude said:
Panna said that Kyle says they get bigger, but wasn't sure because details of P.obscura in the hobby are sketchy, and they sure are. From what I've read in Orin's new book, P.obscura is smaller than P.saussurei, but on this European breeder's website, it states that P.obscura get larger than P.saussurei. Who knows what the truth is, or if the two stocks "obscura" and "saussurei" are even two different species? The fact that there are two very similar looking species in the hobby, and that both stocks happen to be parthenogenic strains of species that normally have males seems a little fishy to me, seems more likely to me that they are the same species, and that stock got split into two different names just because of size difference. That's just a theory of mine though, I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Kyle wasn't all that sure himself and with the hobby not really even being sure it's hard to say. I'll probably go digging through the literature a bit this weekend if I have time and maybe uncover some taxonomic answers. It's a tough call with both species being parthenogenic, but that isn't too uncommon in the invert world (Tityus in the scorpion world being one of the best known). I think schaben-spinnen is usually on top of it, but I don't actually know the people running it, so I can't make any real judgement. I'm inclined to believe Orin here because of the mountain of experience he has and I don't doubt that he has looked into this species before. They may just need to be synonymized, but if there's at least some sort of difference one might get a subspecies status.

 
pannaking22 said:
Yeah, Kyle wasn't all that sure himself and with the hobby not really even being sure it's hard to say. I'll probably go digging through the literature a bit this weekend if I have time and maybe uncover some taxonomic answers. It's a tough call with both species being parthenogenic, but that isn't too uncommon in the invert world (Tityus in the scorpion world being one of the best known). I think schaben-spinnen is usually on top of it, but I don't actually know the people running it, so I can't make any real judgement. I'm inclined to believe Orin here because of the mountain of experience he has and I don't doubt that he has looked into this species before. They may just need to be synonymized, but if there's at least some sort of difference one might get a subspecies status.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'd like to know what morphological features separate the two species so that we can identify what we have in the hobby. I did notice in pictures of museum specimens that P.saussurei females look much more glossy than those of P.obscura, which have more of a matte finish like P.aegyptiaca. However, adults of both "species" in the hobby look the same on schaben spinnen, and strangely enough both look pretty matte in his photos, but the P.saussurei Kyle sells are very glossy.

I'm not saying that the whole two species need to be reevaluated, I'm just saying the stock in the hobby does, cause we may just have two strains of P.saussurei that are labled incorrectly, or vice versa. Only problem is, I bet the two species can only be definitively identified by the adult males, like in Arenivaga, so there may not be a reliable way to differentiate the two by looking at the females, which are all we have in the hobby.

 
Hisserdude said:
Yeah, I'd like to know what morphological features separate the two species so that we can identify what we have in the hobby. I did notice in pictures of museum specimens that P.saussurei females look much more glossy than those of P.obscura, which have more of a matte finish like P.aegyptiaca. However, adults of both "species" in the hobby look the same on schaben spinnen, and strangely enough both look pretty matte in his photos, but the P.saussurei Kyle sells are very glossy.

I'm not saying that the whole two species need to be reevaluated, I'm just saying the stock in the hobby does, cause we may just have two strains of P.saussurei that are labled incorrectly, or vice versa. Only problem is, I bet the two species can only be definitively identified by the adult males, like in Arenivaga, so there may not be a reliable way to differentiate the two by looking at the females, which are all we have in the hobby.
Click to expand...
It may not be a bad idea to re-evaluate the two species, though unfortunately I don't see that happening in the near future. Roach taxonomy definitely needs some flushing out though to begin to make any sense. Seeing as this is a parthenogenic species, I'm betting the major characters used for identification will be in the genitalia. It would definitely be best for the hobby to determine whether it's one species with a different "morph", or if we really are dealing with two different species.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top