Macropanesthia rhinoceros advice needed

macbrush

macbrush

Fifth Instar
Found a trader in China have a lot of them for sell, a set of 6 male and 8 female nymphs going for USD$200, sounds quite attractive. I researched a bit on the topic, and know you need substrate for them to burrow. But I need to know what I can feed them, I know its not a good idea to feed them any Eucalyptus, but what I can feed them? Any dry leaf will do? Its very hard to find steady supply of leaf here, except those they use to keep crickets, not sure what they are, saw them in shop all the time. I know there are some oak trees around my village though, will those be sufficient?

Anything else I should consider before making decision?

Any pointer would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

Kenneth

 
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well you may wanna consider not losing your money. They won't ship to the united states. and if they do it will be confiscated at the check.

 
Don't worry about that, I live in Hong Kong, bringing them cross the boarder is quite easy for me, I just have the seller ship to my friend's factory over there, then I'll go to pick them up. :-)

 
macbrush said:
I researched a bit on the topic, and know you need substrate for them to burrow.
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What research did you do? It doesn't sound like you have found good information. Are you sure they are Macropanesthia? That's a great price.
 
I just browsed around, and here is my plan. Use 3" of plain kitten sand as substrate or see if I can find some river sand at the streams near my village, some dried leaves and other dead plant matters on top just to make it look better. Keep sand moisture medium, but not wet at all time, temp around 20 - 28C. Feed them dog food, cat food, fruits, and should find a source of dried leaves for them to chew on, but still working on it. There are so many kind of oak trees, which really confuses me. The most common kind here is Indian Rubber Tree (in Chinese, its call Indian Oak Tree), not sure if that will work. Also we have some introduced oak tree sub species here, but they're somehow harder to find, and I need to id them before risking feed them to the roaches. That's how far I have got at the moment.

But then I am going to order some cheaper ones from the seller first, see how he ships, packaging, quality, length of shipment, and most importantly whether he really ships at all before I make a decision on the more (much more) expensive Rhino Roach.

 
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Wow if they are indeed M. Rhinoceros, then you have hit the jackpot!

That is a very cheap price for 14 nymphs.

We have them here more or less US $72 each in the Philippines and they are just unsexed nymphs.

Yes you should probably test the credibility of this seller by researching for positive feedbacks and buy cheaper species for now.

 
The test order arrived, everything is in good shape, and the seller even gave me a lot more than I ordered, plus a few more other species to try out. So I guess I'll bite the bullet, well, as soon as I am certain I know how to keep them well.

 
Some updates, I found that dried Eucalyptus robusta leaves is a popular Chinese medicine up north, and there is some Eucalyptus camaldulensis planted next to a stream about 30 k away and in fact, Eucalyptus tereticornis is quite popular in local parks. These are all Auatralian introduced species, and koala eat all of them.

Do you think it is safe? Dried Eucalyptus robusta leaves is the easiest way, mail order cost around USD$5 for 1kg of dried leaves, which is plenty since they're dried, I imagine.

 
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There was just a thread about the eucalyptus issue. There are some species that are safe, and some that aren't. I would personally just use oak. It doesn't hurt to be on the safe side, right? Especially with such a hard to find species !

 
I actually considered oak first, and started my research on local oak trees instead of Eucalyptus. Too bad there is no real oak tree here in Hong Kong, at least I couldn't find any introduction record, I could probably find a few privately imported ones if I really try, but it would be hard to find, not to mention reaching them. The only one's Chinese name resemble to oak tree (Indian Oak Tree in Chinese) is actually Indian Rubber tree.

 
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Indian Rubber Tree sounds like Ficus elastica, which is probably not a good idea to feed. I did a little searching and found that there are apparently oaks in China, especially a Quercus subgenus called the "ring-cupped oaks". Whether there are any where it's practical for you to harvest leaves from, I don't know.

 
Thanks for all the suggestions.

I did a quick look up on Quercus sp. and came up with Quercus championii, and Quercus edithae. There is a taiwan site mentioning ring-cupped oaks [blue japanese oak, Cyclobalanopsis glauca] also found in Hong Kong, but I can't find any local reference.

I don't think there would be any fruit trees within public reach in Hong Kong, and since it is sub-tropical here, I know definitely no apple trees, probably no cherry as well (just did a quick search, appears in asia, they only grow on western side). I know peach is originated from China, so I could probably find some online, if not locally available, but there is very little local info on this topic.

However, we do have a few species of maples, Alangium chinense, Daphniphyllum calycinum, Bischofia javanica, Liquidambar formosana, and Pterospermum heterophyllum. I think they named them totally based on the shape of their leaves. So which genus of maple I should be looking for?

Maybe i can also try any trees find infested with bugs (probably bug safe?) and see if they like them. Just a thought, since many introduced species, e.g. Eucalyptus citriodora, were introduced for their ability to repel insects, maybe population of insects can at least tell whether they're poisonous or not.

 
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Look for maples in the genus Acer.

You should be able to find Acer palmatum, which is an ornamental tree.

 
Oh, there is one more very important question though, I know there is a common kind of burrowing roach in Australia, Geoscapheus dilatatus. Not much of information about it online, there are some photos of adults, which look remarkably like the giant one, but that's probably because there is nothing in the pics for relating its size. Since I am buying nymphs, I would imagine it would be even more difficult to tell them apart. And from my misfortunes dealing with mainland China dealer, I actually a little worry about it.

I asked the seller send me a couple of photos. Can anyone help me id them, please? He's about 20mm in length.

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That doesn't look like M. rhinoceros. From the pics I found of G. dilatatus it appears that species has modified limbs for digging, whereas the one in your pics doesn't appear to have these.

 
macbrush said:
I don't know, but they look like Eublaberus posticus to me.
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I was just about to say that they look like something from the genus Eublaberus! :P

It's probably E. posticus but it could be E. sp. "Pantanal"... Or maybe something nobody's ever had before. You should ask him for photos of winged individuals or talk him down on the price (assuming they aren't E. posticus.)

 
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