Wanted: Male glowspot roaches of any variety

[Blaberus Craniifer]

So a long time ago I talked with some of you about the glowing spots of glowspot cockroaches and why they don't glow in captivity.  I mentioned that it would be really cool if  someone would attempt to get them to glow with faerie fire mushrooms. They agreed it would be cool but they couldn't get around to it. So this year I have to do a science experiment for my AG class to prove or disprove something and it needs to be somehow agriculture related. So I decided that it would be both fun and interesting to finally see for myself if their spots really can glow. My partner and I need three groups of two males, any variety works as long as the pairs are matching in variety. We will be collecting some rotten logs from the Laguna where we live, growing three mushroom packs, one for each group, and conducting various controlled experiments to really test this. I will pay whatever price asked for pairs of adult male roaches, I would like to have at least one group that is of a different variety from the others because one of my experiments is to see (if they glow at all) if the glowing is restricted to one kind or if all of them will glow. I obviously cannot promise that MY experiments are the end all be all to the mystery of the glowing cockroach, however It will certainly be interesting to see the results of at least one person and I encourage other people to try this too and prove whatever my findings may be wrong or right.

 

[Bmaines96]

While I don't disagree with it being a fun experiment the glowing mushroom species are a pain to grow and I've tried every available species of glowing fungi, bacteria, and algae there is, the issue is lucihormetica actually contain luciferinase enzymes in their guts and luciferin is the dye that causes like 99% of bioluminescent organisms to glow, so them consuming something that glows has zero chance of affecting their spots as the dye is destroyed immediately by their natural gut components.

 

[Blaberus Craniifer]

While I don't disagree with it being a fun experiment the glowing mushroom species are a pain to grow and I've tried every available species of glowing fungi, bacteria, and algae there is, the issue is lucihormetica actually contain luciferinase enzymes in their guts and luciferin is the dye that causes like 99% of bioluminescent organisms to glow, so them consuming something that glows has zero chance of affecting their spots as the dye is destroyed immediately by their natural gut components.

Man, that's a shame but at the same time really neat! Ill have to go through with the experiment as it is already listed as my project but I'll be sure to add some other experiments and dig further into their bio luminescence in the wild, thanks for the info!

 

[Bmaines96]

Yea what I've seen several people discussing is that they think people collecting other lucihormetica may have been seeing glowing click beetles in the same area(they are both found up in trees) and just assuming they messed something up and the lucihormetica stopped glowing not that another insect was nearby glowing. Another theory is they could eat the larva of the glowing click beetles but I'm unsure what compound those species use to glow.

 

[Blaberus Craniifer]

Yea what I've seen several people discussing is that they think people collecting other lucihormetica may have been seeing glowing click beetles in the same area(they are both found up in trees) and just assuming they messed something up and the lucihormetica stopped glowing not that another insect was nearby glowing. Another theory is they could eat the larva of the glowing click beetles but I'm unsure what compound those species use to glow.

Super cool, I'll have to look into all of those theories. Love this kind of stuff, it's always interesting! And thanks for all the info!