Weird B. giganteus sex ratio

[Forcep]

Started a giant cave roach colony by a dozen mixed age nymphs last year, and finally adults are pumping out! Now I've got 6 adults which all looks awesome -- until I tried to sex them...

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All the adults looks exactly the same, I think they are all males. Is it normal for this species to have more males, or the males are just growing much faster? Cause the rest of the nymphs are way smaller.

 

[Keith]

That's a male. Might be males are maturing first I've heard of that.

 

[wodesorel]

My second generation all matured at the same time, and I noticed the same thing you did! I had something like 17 adult males and every last nymph was a female. It was freaky until the people here reminded me that the females have an extra molt before they mature. Even then I did have about 1/3 female to 2/3 male once they all made their final molt, but my colony is still just getting started.

How much is "way smaller"? Have you checked gender on them to see if that's where all the ladies are?

 

[Forcep]

My second generation all matured at the same time, and I noticed the same thing you did! I had something like 17 adult males and every last nymph was a female. It was freaky until the people here reminded me that the females have an extra molt before they mature. Even then I did have about 1/3 female to 2/3 male once they all made their final molt, but my colony is still just getting started.

How much is "way smaller"? Have you checked gender on them to see if that's where all the ladies are?

I've thoroughly checked my roaches, and there are 10 males and 2 females (both nymphs), wow that can't be good... I believe that females take longer time to mature, but seems the main reason is I've got some bad sex ratio here

 

[Jayson745]

Probabilities are weird like that. Every once in a while, the roulette wheel lands on red 20 times in a row.