The Death Head Roach's pronotum and wings

[crepsis]

So, after seeing several pictures of B. craniifer, I've come up with a question that I hope someone can answer either definitively or through experience (I'm betting Orin has an answer for me!). I've noticed that the pronotum design varies from picture to picture, namely the shape of the "mouth" and "teeth" of the "face" on the pronotum. Other things that seem to vary a bit are the clear patches on the upper part of the wings (placement and size and outline shape), the width of the "nose" and "eyes", and their placement in relation to the mouth (but only slightly different in some pictures).

My question is this: Do individuals in a colony tend to show this variation, or are each of the individual's pronotum design basically homogenized throughout a culture? Or, since most of the pictures that I have seen most likely come from the same original source of B. craniifer, if a colony only displays a similar design on each individual, does the design on a population's pronotums slowly change (I guess through genetic drift) as the colony/culture ages?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. I've just sent away for some B. craniifer nymphs, and I'm curious as to what to expect when my colony starts to take off. ^_^

 

[crepsis]

Any ideas, or am I just gonna have to wait and see?

 

[Matt K]

Hold on, slick. B.craniifer is a species. Just like people are Homosapiens. So there are individuals within the species just like some people have dark brown hair and others may have light brown, and they can even be related within a family...even two brothers or sisters can have different hair colors. Similarly, B.craniifer can vary somewhat within a colony, you dig? If they were totally identical then they would be clones. B. craniifer does not appear to produce clones. Within a colony you might get some that are identical by chance, but ordinarily you will have males and females, and all the males may be slightly different and all the females slightly differ from one another...

Savvy ???

 

[crepsis]

Groovy B) I was *guessing* (imagining) that every individual would show a minimal amount of variation due to the limited gene pool that the original culture would have started out with, resulting in modern homogenized cultures that show little variation in pattern/design (only varying greatly through time)...so now I can expect all sorts of variation within my colony once it gets going...that's awesome - and good to know! Thanks!

 

[Allpet Roaches]

As long as you have an unmixed colony you'll see very little in the way of color variation. There will be very [SIZE=12pt]minor[/SIZE] differences in the exact shape of the patterns but nothing that will look much different. Keep in mind, "two Wongs don't make a white."

 

[crepsis]

As long as you have an unmixed colony you'll see very little in the way of color variation. There will be very [SIZE=12pt]minor[/SIZE] differences in the exact shape of the patterns but nothing that will look much different. Keep in mind, "two Wongs don't make a white."

LOL!

OK that's what I figured, but just was too impatient to wait and see! (So I thought I'd ask)

 

[Shawn H]

As long as you have an unmixed colony you'll see very little in the way of color variation. There will be very [SIZE=12pt]minor[/SIZE] differences in the exact shape of the patterns but nothing that will look much different. Keep in mind, "two Wongs don't make a white."

Yeah thats exactly how it is in my colony, all the same colors and patterns vary slightly.