Archiblatta hoeveni… Eggses!
Three months ago (18th January 2022) this was the situation:
- 4 mature males, 1 mature female, and 3 pre-adult females. All separated into their own pairing enclosures. And the remaining 7 nymphs still inside the original enclosure.
As of today (the 4th of April 2022) the colony status is as follows:
- 4 mature males (still alive), 5 mature females. All separated into their own pairing enclosures with one enclosure containing 2 females (the youngest). And 6 nymphs still inside their original enclosure. From the remaining 6, I could sex another male and another female that will quickly arrive at pre-adult stage within the next month or so.
There are many things to cover on this post so lets get started!
This colony saw a tremendous growth on the development of the nymphs into adults!
Archiblatta hoeveni female nymph - Mid October 2021
Archiblatta hoeveni adult female - Early February 2022
Just check the sizes of these roaches! I am still astonished by their growth, their size and their incredible exoskeleton!!
Archiblatta hoeveni composition
I also managed to correct and complete the last photographic composition which had a mistake from my part, where I mis-identified what an adult female should look like!
So after starting to create their own dedicated pairing enclosures, as the females matured and the temperatures increased, I witnessed the males being more and more active, until one day I finally managed to capture a pairing.
Archiblatta hoeveni adults pairing
The reason why I decided to separate them was because they seem to require a lot of space as they grow into adults as they seem to become less communal. This became even more clear as I removed the larger individuals from the communal enclosure into the dedicated ones. The remaining nymphs which were still very small started to grow, which confirmed my suspicions on a pecking order during feedings, which prevented the smaller nymphs to grow.
Around middle February, I found my first gravid female carrying an ootheca.
Archiblatta hoeveni adult female carrying an ootheca
And the right next day, that ootheca was on the ground!! I cannot tell you how excited I was!
Archiblatta hoeveni ootheca
Archiblatta hoeveni ootheca
The oothecas are absolutely huge as you can see from the photo above.
One after the other, all my females started to get pregnant and drop oothecas in almost all the enclosures except one, the last breeding box with the two youngest females.
Archiblatta hoeveni ootheca dropped on the ground
But unfortunately not everything went according to plan!
Unfortunately, my first breeding female after laying two successful oothecas, decided to eat its 3rd and 4th ootheca.
Archiblatta hoeveni eaten ootheca
After checking with other Archiblatta keepers in Facebook, I was told that at least one of them has had the same problem and now removes all his oothecas to a separate hatching enclosure. And so after loosing two oothecas, I felt forced to do the same.
Archiblatta hoeveni oothecas divided by breeding boxes. Box 1 produced 4 (but ate 2), Box 2 produced 2 and Box 3 produced 4 as well
Now time for some numbers.
It seems it took around 20 to 30 days to produce the first ootheca after pairing. Because the temperatures were on the low end (15C to 18C) it took an additional 15 days to produce the second ootheca, but now that the temperatures are between 20C and 25C it takes each female around 11 days to lay the next ootheca.
From a discussion in Cockroach Study Group (in Facebook), the other keeper has got 20 oothecas from 2 females for the last 6 months. That is an average of 1 ootheca per female every 18 days.
While I wait for my oothecas to start hatching, I know from the Cockroach Studies Issue 2 of August 2007, in which it is written that I took 65 days for one ootheca to hatch out, so I hope that between middle April to end of April I can get my first ootheca to hatch as well. Let’s see what happens.
Just one last issue before I end this post, once again, thanks to the watchful and experienced eyes of TJ, he could spot that some of my oothecas were looking too dried out and wrinkled.
After confirming with another successful Archiblatta breeder how he kept his oothecas, he replied, that he kept his wet “Wet like in forest after rain” - to which I was actually amazed.
But also started to do the same, the oothecas did seem the improve in retaining the original rounded shape compared to the older ones.
Let’s hope this mistake isn’t going to cost me my earliest oothecas.
Archiblatta hoeveni female exoskeleton
Well this is it for this log, I hope you have enjoyed it and thank you for taking the time to read.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Cheers!