OMG! Hybrid Hissers!

Bugoodle

Bugoodle

Pupa
Today we just found tiny little bugs in my niece's bug tank. Baby hisser roaches! Madagascar Hisser X Halloween Hisser, I'm sure. Other adult roach residents are a female beetle mimic roach, chrome roach(sex not identifyed), and a another male hisser, I'm not sure of species(large black came free with madagascar).  Is it possible for hissers to interbreed with the others? I found nine, all are black except one that's grey. 

 
Bugoodle said:
Today we just found tiny little bugs in my niece's bug tank. Baby hisser roaches! Madagascar Hisser X Halloween Hisser, I'm sure. Other adult roach residents are a female beetle mimic roach, chrome roach(sex not identifyed), and a another male hisser, I'm not sure of species(large black came free with madagascar).  Is it possible for hissers to interbreed with the others? I found nine, all are black except one that's grey. 
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Species in the genus Gromphadorhina (large hissing roaches) can hybridize.  Do the young ones in the tank looks something like this? - 
babies.jpg


 
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Goliathus said:
Species in the genus Gromphadorhina (large hissing roaches) can hybridize.  Do the young ones in the tank looks something like this? - 
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Yes! Except ours are entirely black, but they do look like the lighter one.

 
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Oh. What kind of roaches are they? Hybrids? I know when I had a halloween hisser nymph, he/she was also black. She died all of a sudden. I'm keeping 8 babies in one of the "baby tanks."  A small enclosure about 6 inches tall, 6 inches long, and 3.5 inches wide. If I spray water into them, they instantly start to build mold. So I provide extra quencher  jellies for them to go under to stay moist. I'm a little worried. I know roaches love humidity, and my baby domino roaches have been thriving well for 6 months now. I worry if my hisser died from not enough humidity? Do hissers require more humidity than other roaches? I do have a bigger enclosure tank that won't collect mold and can be misted down, the "graduation tank" for when baby insects get large enough to monitor, but these guys are not ready yet. What do you think? If they need to be moved, I will, it will just be a pain to monitor them. I have some vasiline too, so I can keep them at bay from escasping vents, but it's baby powderscented(I'll try to pick up regular tommarrow, it's just what we have laying around the house), I hope it doesn't bother them.

 
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Bugoodle said:
Oh. What kind of roaches are they? Hybrids? I know when I had a halloween hisser nymph, he/she was also black. She died all of a sudden. I'm keeping 8 babies in one of the "baby tanks."  A small enclosure about 6 inches tall, 6 inches long, and 3.5 inches wide. If I spray water into them, they instantly start to build mold. So I provide extra quencher  jellies for them to go under to stay moist. I'm a little worried. I know roaches love humidity, and my baby domino roaches have been thriving well for 6 months now. I worry if my hisser died from not enough humidity? Do hissers require more humidity than other roaches? I do have a bigger enclosure tank that won't collect mold and can be misted down, the "graduation tank" for when baby insects get large enough to monitor, but these guys are not ready yet. What do you think? If they need to be moved, I will, it will just be a pain to monitor them. I have some vasiline too, so I can keep them at bay from escasping vents, but it's baby powderscented(I'll try to pick up regular tommarrow, it's just what we have laying around the house), I hope it doesn't bother them.
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I think the nymphs in the photo are probably G. portentosa, or a hybrid of portentosa and oblongonota.  I've heard that most of the hissing roaches in the US are probably hybrids of these two species.  I believe that a few hobbyists do have pure cultures of oblongonota, though.

I'm really not sure how much humidity hissing roaches need, but I assume that the young nymphs would probably be somewhat more susceptible to drying out than the adults would be.  I'm sure there are plenty of hobbyists on this forum (and on Allpet Roaches Forum) that could provide a lot more detail about that.  I haven't kept hissing roaches in many years, but when I did, I just let the young ones grow up in the same enclosure (I used 10 gallon aquariums) as the adults, and never had any problems.  I misted the tank maybe a couple of times a week.  I think a lot of people use coco fiber as a substrate for them (and for many other roach species, also).  I've been keeping my rhino roaches on it for as long as I've had them, and no problems at all.  It's very good at maintaining moisture.  I just keep the tank's cover half-covered with a sheet of plastic, so that one end stays somewhat dry, and the other considerably more humid, and mist the humid end as needed.

 
Ok, thank you! I use coconut fiber. Maybe I'll just put a thin layer in the bigger tank so I can still get a view, at least under the tank.

 
Also if you didn’t know Common hissers (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and Halloween hissers (Elliptorhina javanica) are in totally different genus, although they come from the same island, I doubt it would be possible to hybridize them.

 
BensBeasts1 said:
Also if you didn’t know Common hissers (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and Halloween hissers (Elliptorhina javanica) are in totally different genus, although they come from the same island, I doubt it would be possible to hybridize them.
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I think if the animal is in the same subfamily they can. Such as turtles, like Trachemys scripta elegans x Graptemys geographica different Genus both apart of family emydidae. Not sure if this applies to insects. After some research, the only compatable breedings I can see is of the hissers. Both being apart of family, Blaberidae. The only females in the tank are my halloween hisser and a mimic beetle roach and there's nothing related to her(the beetle roach). 

 
Well, I went ahead and put them in the "graduation tank." In fact, there's so much room, I went ahead and put my baby domino roaches and 2 "surprise" wild roach nymphs in there too. I bet they feel great being misted. Beats staying moist under quencher jell. Also my 2 wild Surprise roaches, one turned into his adult form last night! But...it's just a tiny little tree/wood roach. I told my niece we should let him go, but she whined and wants to keep him. I hope the other one is a bigger surprise. 

 
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Well, we really decreased in numbers(we found more). Currently we only have 9. We lost the little silver one too. 😩 

We lost one 2-3 days ago. But they have been thriving very well. One cage had 6 for a while, and was knocked down to 4 now. The other cage had 5 and are still thriving. They are eating on banana jellies for roaches. I'll be ordering them a flavored roach kibble to go with it for extra nutrition. I was excited...but now I'm just annoyed. It's so hard keeping these guys alive. And to make things worse, I have more on the way, another hybrid. Just today found her butt attached to the black tiger roach. After she gives birth, I'm going to have to seperate her by herself.

 
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Bugoodle said:
Well, we really decreased in numbers(we found more). Currently we only have 9. We lost the little silver one too. 😩 

We lost one 2-3 days ago. But they have been thriving very well. One cage had 6 for a while, and was knocked down to 4 now. The other cage had 5 and are still thriving. They are eating on banana jellies for roaches. I'll be ordering them a flavored roach kibble to go with it for extra nutrition. I was excited...but now I'm just annoyed. It's so hard keeping these guys alive. And to make things worse, I have more on the way, another hybrid. Just today found her butt attached to the black tiger roach. After she gives birth, I'm going to have to seperate her by herself.
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Hybrids can be finnicky. Almost all Hissers (all sp.) in the hobby are hybrids anyway, thanks to sloppy import segregation. If you want pure roaches, check out (roachcrossing.com). But make sure to keep all of your species separate. :)

 
BensBeasts1 said:
Also if you didn’t know Common hissers (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and Halloween hissers (Elliptorhina javanica) are in totally different genus, although they come from the same island, I doubt it would be possible to hybridize them.
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Sadly it's actually quite possible for them to hybridize, Aeluropoda and whatever the "Tiger Hissers" are can hybridize and create fertile offspring, and they are definitely considered to be different genera... So I generally wouldn't recommend anyone keep any two hisser species together, the entire taxonomy of Gromphadorhini needs overhauling and it seems most of them can potentially hybridize with each other.

 
They all take after their halloween hisser mother. You can't even tell that they're hybrids. 8 survived, about 3 inches in length right now. I really need to find them homes already! Ugh! The darkling beetles don't know when to stop either! I could honestly run a business now!

 
If they are hybrids, would recommend that you try to keep them apart from other roaches and don't sell or give them to people who plan on breeding them. While most hisser species in the hobby are probably already tainted with genes from other species, it is important to keep the bloodlines as pure as we can. Adding other species into the gene pool should be avoided if possible. That said, I love hissers as pets and it can be fun to play around with hybrids as long as they don't get into the wrong hands. 

 
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