Some kind of burrowing roach?

macbrush

macbrush

Fifth Instar
Since I ran out of medium size dubia for my geckos, so I went out to bird shop for some. I didn't check the bag carefully (stupid me), but i didn't know they have other kind of roaches for sell, and look through the bag they do look like roachy enough for me...

They are some kind of burrowing roaches judging by the shape and legs similar to their other burrowing cousins, can't climb at all, egg laying, adult size just under 1", adult colour dark brown. Can someone id them for me, please? Their shell is far too hard as feeders for geckos, so I am going to keep a small colony of them for the heck of it, well... maybe feed off some just molted if I caught them.

Thank you very much in advance

Cheers

Kenneth

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Polyphaga sp.? Probably aegyptiaca is my guess.

There's a possibility they could be a Eupolyphaga species but I'm not familiar with the size etc of that genus.

**Edit- I don't see any males. You'll have to raise some babies to adulthood; those might be P. obscura which is reportedly parthenogenic.

 
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Now that you mentioned it, I just took another look and yeah, there seems to be no male. But I will take a close look at each of them tomorrow after work since it is quite late now. I'll set them up properly tomorrow try to raise them, now they're just in an empty bin with a piece of lettuce which I am not even sure they'll eat or not. I guess they'll be fine for a few days as long as there is a water source, after all, they were raised as feeders, so they have to be hardy.

In the mean time, I'll try look up info on polyphagid sp. see if I can find a match, thanks for the suggestions.

Froggy: depends on where you are, i can mail you some if it is legal. They cost just $2 for 2 dozens of them.

 
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Oh.. if they're indeed Polyphaga aegyptiaca, the none of them have wings, so there is really no males.

 
just took a look at one of my female aegyptiaca and there is a small difference in color my aegyptiaca are almost completly black where as yours have the sort a sort of brown on the edges. thay actually look more like what zephyr suggested (P. obscura) at least from the photos of them i've been able to find. ether way cool little find

 
This is most puzzling... when I come home from work today, more than half of them are already dead, the rest don't seem active at all, in fact I have to turn them over to see if they're still alive, otherwise they just sit there not moving, even if I poke them... I'll see if a substrate will help them out.

 
I threw them some sand/eco-earth mixed substrate, and they immediately came "awake", not playing dead anymore. Digging, eating, running... And the good news is that not all of those dead ones are really dead, but they play dead really well, you can be fiddling around with it for a minute or two, and still think its dead, about 1/2 of what I thought were dead were really dead though, probably due to over-hydration as Kyle suggested, or stressed out due to really rough transportation and nothing to burrow for over 24 hours, as well as it just turned autumn about a week ago here so the temp isn't exactly optimum for them I guess. What i did was to put them on the sand, those still alive would quit playing dead and dig right away. I am keeping the dead ones one more night see if they would give me any more surprises, but I really doubt that since this time, I even squeeze them a bit to make sure they're not moving at all.

 
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I am feeding them dried leaves, carrot, and lettuce. I also have a half soaked watermoor in the bin for a water source. Do you guys think this is good enough?

 
macbrush said:
I am feeding them dried leaves, carrot, and lettuce. I also have a half soaked watermoor in the bin for a water source. Do you guys think this is good enough?
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They actually don't need a water source; they have mouth parts that are designed to allow them to take in atmospheric water, so as long as the container has a slight amount of moisture, they'll be fine.

 
I just checked on them before I go to work because the temperature has dropped to below 70F, and I found a strange looking male! It is smaller than others, and have wings! I'll upload some pic of it after work today.

 
He's dead by the time i get home. Temp dropped from mid 80s to high 70s today, probably that's what killed him.

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Eupolyphaga sinensis!

Assuming they were all in the same mix, the females are probably that too. :)

 
We're throwing sticks at watermelons here but since when are E. sinensis females black and that male doesn't seem to be fully sclerotized, he might be black if he hadn't died prematurely.

 
The venation doesn't look right for a male Polyphaga sp. I assume that if the two were sold together in the same batch they came from the same breeder/breeding facility, and E. sinensis is apparently widely used in traditional medicinal treatments in China.

This pic shows a black adult female E. sinensis:
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Though I do admit the females pictured don't seem like they're Eupolyphaga... Perhaps two or more species were mixed into this feeder roach deal.

 
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