First adult!

BlattaAnglicana

BlattaAnglicana

Fourth Instar
A red letter day - last night I had my first hisser nymph moult to adulthood from the group born in January! He is a magnificent male - sadly no pictures as I didn't want to disturb him whilst he was teneral and whilst I have seen him this morning he shot off to hide as soon as I opened the cage door, but I hope I'll be able to get some photos when he comes out again.

It's fascinating to have seen him grow from a tiny little creature little bigger than an apple pip to a pretty big male in just the space of a few months. I don't know whether he will end up being the "alpha" male (he's pretty big so he could do!) but at the moment he is the only adult male in the colony and he has the "territory" all to himself! (I moved my original male and a couple of the biggest female nymphs, which originated in a different colony, to another cage as I am hoping that will increase genetic diversity in the colony). Several of the other nymphs look close to bursting out of their skin though, so I am sure a few more adults will follow soon. It will be interesting to watch, if there are more males, how they establish a dominance hierarchy!  :)

 
0 replies? Oh man, no hisser love!  ;)

Well, that's exciting to see the "journey" from beginning to adulthood! Hissers are pretty big, so each step is quite noticeable, too. Sounds like the "big man" will be nice and happy to have the whole place to himself!  B) Congrats!

 
Thanks Skyvie, yes he seems pretty happy so far! Still not been able to get photos as he tends to come out of hiding only at night and I don't really like disturbing the colony too much during the day, so I haven't had a good opportunity yet.

He's still the only adult male in the cage but there are now at least two more that have moulted to adulthood and they are all females. No sign of mating yet though - whether that's just because I haven't "caught them in the act" or whether it's because the females take a bit of time before they become receptive, I don't know (I read somewhere that newly moulted adult female roaches in some species need a few days to a few weeks before they are ready to mate - can anyone confirm if this is true for hissers?) but I imagine there will be even more babies in there before long  :o  

There is also one absolutely huge subadult male in the colony - I think he will be even bigger than the first male as he is about the same size already as the new adult male. It will be interesting to see those two fight it out when this nymph finally makes it to adulthood! 

 
Well it's taken a while but finally I have a photo of one of the biggest males in my colony - there are lots of adults now and one or two absolutely enormous males! 

This is one of them:

IMG_3269.JPG

Edited to add - these were sold to me as Gromphadorhina "species" (i.e. unknown provenance, may be hybrid) but they look more like pure oblongonota to me, from the photos I've seen of portentosa and oblongonota on here and on the web. However I'm not an expert so if anyone could tell me if he looks like "pure" oblongonota or whether he's probably a hybrid, that would be great!

 
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