# Blaberus



## blatta (May 21, 2008)

A few have asked me how I keep these, as there isnt as much information available as more commonly kept species wuch as Blapica dubia.

These are Blaberus sp, I dont really know what they are. Very similar in appearance to Blaberus discoidalis, Blaberus atropos, and Blaberus parabolicus, identifying them properly is very difficult, just as most insects. It doesnt really matter though, just dont mix groups from different sources unless you are sure they are the same.

This is one of my groups. It was started with 50 males and 50 females last april. They are in an underbed storage tub, with egg crate and newspaper.










After removing all the eg crate etc. You can see a load of babies. I periodically remove all the nymphs about every 3-4 months, to ensure the generations dont mix, these babies are up to 6 weeks old.

As you can see both the males and females have full wings. They dont fly though, and are still pretty easier to sex. 









Heres the nymphs I separated from the group in November. I wouldnt normally reccomend using pine shavings with any insect, but this lot was old, and lost all the pine smell. A substrate isnt nessasery, it is just easier to keep them in high densities. That is about 3cm deep, which is mostly roaches!









And heres one I made earlier, maybe from a different group. They are probably 5-6 months old:








Theyre kept at about 25oC, fed the same as dubia (poultry food, grain, fruit, veg, leaves and seeds). I dont provide extra moisture


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## grumpyoldtrout (May 19, 2008)

Very nice Blatta, we did not have room for an under the bed setup so opted for a drawer unit from Instore, £14.99










There is self adhesive velcro hooked side and pollen netting over the top, not that I am paranoid about them getting out or anything. :lol2:


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## Pythonman14 (Jan 7, 2009)

do you know or know of a website that would tell me how to tell the diffrence between the discoids and the Blaberus sp cause i have a small colony of discoids its not that important but it would be nice to know.


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## blatta (May 21, 2008)

I dont I'm afraid. I know of a scientific paper published nearly 40 years ago, which describes the differences between the group, but as with most insects, this is not an easy task, and requires dissection of the males. Even then, the differeces are subtle, and you would also need localty data.

Out of intrest, how big are yours, in terms of total adult lenght? I often read B. discoidalis and atropos as being 35-45mm as adults, mine are much larger, mostly 45-50mm. Of corse that is assuming that the other ones are identified correctly, and even then it could just be natural variaton. 

Sometimes even the ones whihc I call Blaberus craniifer "brown wings", and often called Blaberus fusca, are called Blaberus discoidalis.

Andrew


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## Pythonman14 (Jan 7, 2009)

mine are 45mm to 55mm and these are adults.


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