What species can B. Giganteus breed with?

Keith

Keith

Megaloblatta
Just wondering if B. Giganteus can cross breed with other roach species like craniifer,discoid, or fusca.

I have a male B. Giganteus and a female either craniifer or fusca in the same tank. So I was wondering if there is any chance they could produce offspring.

 
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Keith said:
Just wondering if B. Giganteus can cross breed with other roach species like craniifer,discoid, or fusca.I have a male B. Giganteus and a female either craniifer or fusca in the same tank. So I was wondering if there is any chance they could produce offspring.
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There are other Blaberus hybrids, so its possible. I would destroy the female though just in case they already have bred. My stance is against hybrids, personally.

 
Hi

According to the male genitalia [LM Roth, 1969, Psyche 76,3] (and User Lucihormetica if I remember that correctly) it could/should be only possible within the same group. The Giganteus-group contains only B. giganteus and B. craniifer and there the size of the two species is too different to make a crossing likely. That means that B. craniifer hybrids are only hybrids of different local forms of B. craniifer and not species hybrids. Besides: I can't find a hybride on the link...

This furthermore means that B. atropos syn. B. fusca could only possibly breed with species of the Atropos-group and for example B. colosseus only within the Brasilianus-group. Because several of the possible combinations shouldn't/couldn't work because of size and morphology differences (within the same group) or never occurred because at least one of the possible species is not in culture, any sort of species-hybrid in culture is wery unlikely. In addition: Several species have overlaping habitats and therefore it seems obvious that nature took precautions to omit hybridisation (well, there are several known animal and plant species showing fertil hybrids in such cases).

In the german roach-forum there were users doing several trials with different species and non gave viable offspring.

Grüessli

Andreas

 
Pharma brings up a very good point....overlapping ranges without evidence of naturally occurring hybridization.

 
You can't assume that because something will hybridize in the lab it will in nature. I have to remind General Biology students that quite often. You have many types of sympatric isolating mechanisms that go on out in the wild and one could expect some of those to not entirely transfer into a lab setting.

 
@ BugmanPrice

I didn't say it can't happen in the nature because it doesn't in culture but something like the other way round ;) !

My statement that hybridisation is rare in nature (and I never heard of it regarding Blaberus) means that it only lowers the 'statistical probability' of hybridisation in culture. Besides: It's just the weakest of my arguments underpinning the other ones but without much validity when used alone.

My real argument is the difference in morphology mainly of male genitalia (size, shape, and 'texture')!

 
Pharma said:
I didn't say it can't happen in the nature because it doesn't in culture but something like the other way round ;) !
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I see, I misunderstood but I do agree with you. Slightly off the topic: one thing I'd like to investigate is the chemoreceptors that some insects have on the genitalia which they have to “taste” their partner and the site of ovipostion. It’d be interesting to see if that’s another isolating mechanism. Maybe I could do a little postgrad study…

 
@Keith

The female looks like a common B. craniifer 'Black Wings' strain and the male like a normal B. craniifer to me!

They might be a little bit larger than 'ordinary' B. craniifer, but only a little bit...

Besidse: The female seem much too dark for B. giganteus, B. fusca or B. atropos syn. B. fusca and I expect hybrids to be colored somewhat in between and not like a pure 'Black Wings' and the male has the totally typical coloration & pattern of a 'normal' B. craniifer. Darker forms of B. craniifer often have much darker females than males and I've never seen another Blaberus sp. showing such a distinctive sexual dimorphism.

I can't believe that they really should be such hybrids and I guess that they just look different than the original specimens because they (B. craniifer) do change color from generation to generation (my darkest 'normal' B. craniifer are now after about 10 generations of selective breeding darker than my brightest 'Black Wings')!

Grüessli

Andreas

 
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