Hi guys! Its been a while! Hope you all doing great and thank you for coming back!

Today, I bring you an approximate 1 year keeping summary on the two most known species within the Morphna genus. Morphna dotata and Morphna maculata. Both with the most sightings in the wild as well both already in the hobby, although not very widespread yet.

iNaturalist Observations

But first, a quick overview on the taxonomy.

FAMILY: BLABERIDAE

SUBFAMILY: Previously EPILAMPRINAE - what now? (After Dominic A. Evangelista - Phylogenomic analyses of Blattodea combining traditional methods, incremental tree-building, and quality-aware support)

Note: Maybe I am missing something. Rhabdoblatta is part of Morphnini Tribe, but Rhabdoblatta is being upped to subfamily, but I dont see anything about Morphna. If Morphna is the type species of Morphnini, shouldn’t it take prevalence over a non type species?

TRIBE: MORPHNINI

GENUS: MORPHNA

Type species: Epilampra maculata Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1865.

The genus Morphna was named by Shelford (1910). It is extant and it is the type genus of Morphnini tribe.

The genus name Morphna is derived from the Greek word "morphē," meaning "form" or "shape," which is often used in taxonomy to reflect the characteristics of the organism. On my further attempt to understand the exact meaning of the word Morphna, I came to this greek word μορφνα - morfna, but exactly what is being referenced to, is inconclusive.

Short Rant - If you have the chance and possibility to describe and name a new species, please add a note on why you chose a particular name to it. It makes it so much more fun for the rest of us, to go back to the moment when you were looking at it and figuring out how to name/categorize it. For example, just like Juxtacalolampra, which was quite easy to understand…. juxta “almost” calolampra. Guy finds new roach, looks at it, “this looks like Calolampra, but not exactly Calolampra, there is something off/unique here”. Sorry, maybe I am too nerd… but I love these little curiosities, I think its what gives more flavor to the keeping experience.

“The genus Morphna was erected for large cockroaches with well-developed wings and flattened body. The following characters were suggested as diagnostic: metatarsus of hind leg as long as the remaining tarsal segments combined; all tarsal segments not spined beneath; pulvilli large (Shelford, 1910, pp. 2, 6-7). In the examined species, minute spinules are developed on the pulvillus of hind metatarsus. In representatives of many other genera of the subfamily Epilamprinae, the ventral side of hind metatarsus bears well-visible spinules proximal to pulvillus; apparently, the absence of these spinules in Morphna has been indicated by Shelford.In the original description, 4 species were included in the genus: Epilampra amplipennis Walker, 1868; E. plana Brunner v. W., 1865; E. maculata Brunner v. W., 1865 and E. badia Brunner v. W., 1865; the type species was not designated; Morphna dotata Walker, 1869 was listed as a synonym of M. badia (Shelford, 1910, р. 7). E. maculata was designated as the type species of the genus by Hebard (1929, p. 93).”

— L. N. Anisyutkin and A. V. Gorochov - New Data on the Genus Morphna Shelford (Dictyoptera,Blattida, Blaberidae) of Indochina

Key to Indo-Chinese Species of the Genus Morphna:

1. Pronotum bicolorous, with large black spot occupying its middle and, partly, posterior portion and almost reaching its anterior margin; remainder of pronotum and tegmina with large black spots. Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Borneo - M. maculata Brunner v. W.

-Pronotum unicolorous, dark; spots on pronotum and tegmina, if any, small and indistinct (Fig. 21) 2

2. Antennae bicolorous: either black with distinetly paler scape or yellow (light brown) with darkened pedicel and base of flagellum. At least hind tibia bicolorous: dark (almost black) dorsally and yellow (light brown) ventrally 3

-Antennae unicolorous: light brown or yellowish. Hind tibia unicolorous, castaneous. Thailand, Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Borneo - M. badia Brunner v. W.

3. Body (especially pronotum) gray-brown with greenish tinge. Pronotum with distinct, although weakly developed, pattern. Scape yellow-brown; the rest of antenna black, becoming somewhat lighter (to dark brown) apically. South Vietnam .- M. clypeata Anisyutkin et Gorochov, sp. n.

-Body red-brown. Pronotum unicolorous, without any pattern. Antenna yellow (light brown) with darkened pedicel and base of flagellum; infuscate area nearly twice as long as scape. Thailand, Malacca, Borneo - M. dotata Walker.

The first species I received was Morphna dotata from Thailand, in January 2024. The second, Morphna maculata from Borneo, Malaysia, was received in August of 2024.

Everything started with M.dotata, I basically replicated everything for M.maculata.

Regarding the enclosure, I used two sizes :

- 18 x 12 x 8 cm / 45 x 30 x 20 inches - While the roaches were not mature.
- 30 x 23 x 14 cm / 76 x 58 x 35 inches - As soon as they started to mature.

3 cm (1inch) of moist substrate made of a mix cocofiber and top soil. On one side of the enclosure added slabs of bark and on the other side, topped with leaf litter.

These enclosure are low in ventilation, with only few side vents (with steel mesh). The lid does not have any gasket, so there is also some air exchange from the top.

Both species are being kept inside a temperature control fridge at 25C (from March to November) and 20C from December to February.

If not kept under controlled temperature, I would never recommend to keep them with low ventilation and high relative air humidity. As the temperature rises, so will the amount of humidity the air can absorb, and the more humidity in the air, the hotter it will be and feel.

Associated with low ventilation, it will be a death sentence for your roaches.

Just like being inside a greenhouse, the roaches will most probably get stressed and with the increased temperature feel, they will end up dying.

In terms of feeding, I feed them weekly. Fruits and protein. Apples, bananas, mango (leftovers), dry protein pellets and always making sure they have tons of dead leaf litter to chew if they wish so.

Watering is done around once a month, with a good spray on the sides or top of the bark, but nothing too excessive.

General maintenance, is done probably once every 2 or 3 months, and more often when they become adults. Major concern, is making sure I remove all the droppings (pellets) and check it is necessary to do a substrate change.

Morphna dotata enclosure - note the dropping pellets on the left side, where the bark was positioned

Timeline of events for Morphna dotata:

1st January 2024 - Received around 16 M.dotata* nymphs pre-adult size (* See Note).

3rd March 2024 - First mature male.

Morphna dotata freshly molted male with two large nymphs

9th April 2024 - First mature female.

Morphna dotata freshly molted female, stalked closely by mature male and a pre-adult nymph.

2nd May 2024 - 1 adult Female and 1 male nymph was found dead. The nymph died during molt, the female was just found dead.

Between May to August - The second male and second female matured. And first male also died.
13th August 2024 - M.dotata female was showing signs of being pregnant.

5th October 2024 - Found first batch of babies in M.dotata enclosure.

Morphna dotata adult pair surrounded by nymphs

27th November - Found second batch of babies. Totally 27 nymphs altogether. (if you look at the timeline, you will notice that they don’t match well…. this species seems to need minimum 1.5 months of gestation. Which means the first batch must have been born before October, I just didn’t notice, otherwise it would have given enough time for the second batch to be found in late November).
16th March 2025 - Both mature male and female are still alive with the nymphs looking to be 2 molts away from adulthood. Female has been looking pregnant for a while. Not sure how long more she will live, and if she will have give birth to a 3rd litter.

*Note - I received a good group of 16 nymphs. 2 pre-adults and the rest 2 molts away from being mature. Unfortunately, given their size I had to abandon most of them. If I recall correctly, only a total of 5 were kept. 3 males and 2 females…. very risky to my liking, but not everything always goes as we want.

Timeline of events for Morphna maculata:

31st August 2024 - Received around 9 M.maculata small nymphs.

24th January 2025 - Sexed all the nymphs - 6 males and 3 females. Not a very good ratio, but better than nothing. If I got 27 nymphs on the M. dotata from a single female, then 3 M.maculata females should be good enough to give me a stable future colony.