# Interesting hisser color morphs



## RoachGirlRen (Nov 25, 2007)

I went to the NY/Metro Reptile Expo today and as usual bothered a poor roach vendor by picking out specific roaches from a tank of many. I've always been fascinated by color morphs in hissers, and found some real gems in this guy's tank. I have a variety of black morphs, and last show, I got a nice looking female with very little black:





I tried to breed her unsucessfully; the male I had her in relentlessly bullied her and denied her food. She's fattened back up so I'll be trying again with a different male.
At any rate, today among some black and stripey looking morphs, I picked up these two. But... I almost question the hisser status of one. Tell me what you think (no flash).





An interesting "chocolate" color. It's not just pre-molt. It actually molted around noon today, and it's now hardened still that color. No black, even on the legs or eyes, just an odd olivey-brown. This thing is insanely spunky, very skittish and noisy. It is still young but I'd say it's going to be a male. 





This is the one I'm wondering about. It's still young, but looks like a hisser. It hisses like a hisser. But it has light legs and a light underbelly, and the body is brown and cream. I looked up various hisser species and while the back's color is somewhat reminiscent of tiger hissers, they all had black legs and underbellies. Is this just an interesting color morph, or the wrong species all together?

At any rate, I'll be breeding both upon maturity, so I guess we'll find out if it is a viable genetic trait producing these colors.


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## froggyman (Nov 26, 2007)

nice morphs you got


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## arachnocat (Nov 30, 2007)

Those are nice! I picked some hissers up at a reptile show I went to this year and there was a beautiful mix of colors. I thought about breeding the red ones and trying to create a new morph but I don't have enough space in my bug room right now.


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## Matt K (Dec 1, 2007)

*Hissers, colors, and thier morphs:*

Not to repeat myself, but Gromphadorhina portentosa (Madagascar "Hissing" Cockroach) is an EXTREMELY variable species.  What this means is that individuals within a colony can develope a wide range of color variations from the typical chestnut brown of the type specimen for the species.  The only true morph is an unstable gene for black and the perpendancy for 'giant'.  So if one shows up with whitish legs, chocolate color body, golden color, brown, reddish brown, or any variation of the same theme, it is still a G. portentosa.  Not another species and not another color morph.  Temperature and diet can both influence color of this roach, so two people can get nymphs from the same batch and rear very different looking colonies based on very slight variations in diet or temp.  Think of them as having a gene that is a "wildcard" when it comes to color developement.  In some colonies all the roaches are near clones.  In others they look like multicolored confetti...


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## dtknow (Dec 1, 2007)

Also, that female you got most likely has already mated. They will only mate once in their lifetimes.


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## RoachGirlRen (Dec 2, 2007)

Which one? Because the one on the bottom is young, as in not young enough to be reproductively viable. And I got the one on top when it was probably too young to breed as well. I usually select young hissers so I can controll the breeding.

Matt K - very interesting! Thank you for the info. I guess I should have said color "variations" to be more correct, I'm still making my way around the lingo of these sorts of things.


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## Rochelle (Dec 7, 2007)

Matt K said:


> Not to repeat myself, but Gromphadorhina portentosa (Madagascar "Hissing" Cockroach) is an EXTREMELY variable species.  What this means is that individuals within a colony can develope a wide range of color variations from the typical chestnut brown of the type specimen for the species.  The only true morph is an unstable gene for black and the perpendancy for 'giant'.  So if one shows up with whitish legs, chocolate color body, golden color, brown, reddish brown, or any variation of the same theme, it is still a G. portentosa.  Not another species and not another color morph.  Temperature and diet can both influence color of this roach, so two people can get nymphs from the same batch and rear very different looking colonies based on very slight variations in diet or temp.  Think of them as having a gene that is a "wildcard" when it comes to color developement.  In some colonies all the roaches are near clones.  In others they look like multicolored confetti...


Right!  
Experiment with temp and diet....see what you come up with. All the same sp...though...


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## Black Widow88 (Dec 8, 2007)

Awesome!

Black Widow88


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## ShawnH (Dec 9, 2007)

What you feed a hisser colony greatly influences thier colors.  I notice my colonies colors tend to shift when I change thier foods to something else.


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## Matt K (Dec 9, 2007)

This is true-  I used a color enhancing floating fish food for pond fish for a while, and many of my roaches got enhanced dark colors and orange pigment.  While this may sound good for some species, I don't think so.  The result was dark amd dingey looking roaches.  Tiger hissers with nice black and white got black and carmel colored.  Glowspots got dark amber instead of pale/white with dark orange spots instead of yellow spots.  Orangehead roaches were nearly brown, etc.

So now I use non-color enhancing fish foods with fruits/veggies...


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## Immortalis79 (Apr 23, 2011)

*Another morph? Maybe?*

I have a couple (lots) of roaches that I keep around as pets...one of them is sitting in my pocket right now, but I'm honestly not even sure if it's a hisser or not. I've never heard it hiss, and it's markings are really weird. 

Hrrrm...it's black, mostly, with a pale, well-defined, yellow round patch on it's belly. It has many horizontal, well-defined stripes on it's shell, one on each segment. The stripes are the same color as the abdomen, a pale yellow, though in some places the stripes blush a brighter golden yellow. The stripes aren't solid--in some places there are little black spots on the stripes and places where the black bulges in on the yellow, making little "nicked" patches. The protonum and the two sections below it are solid black.

The base of the roach's antennae are very thick, and the antennae are long. The roach is rather flat and thin and perfectly symmetrical. It refuses to eat anything I've tried to give it. I haven't even seen it drink water. 

Does anyone have any idea what kind of roach this is?


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## LeilaNami (Apr 23, 2011)

Matt K said:


> Not to repeat myself, but Gromphadorhina portentosa (Madagascar "Hissing" Cockroach) is an EXTREMELY variable species.  What this means is that individuals within a colony can develope a wide range of color variations from the typical chestnut brown of the type specimen for the species.  The only true morph is an unstable gene for black and the perpendancy for 'giant'.  So if one shows up with whitish legs, chocolate color body, golden color, brown, reddish brown, or any variation of the same theme, it is still a G. portentosa.  Not another species and not another color morph.  Temperature and diet can both influence color of this roach, so two people can get nymphs from the same batch and rear very different looking colonies based on very slight variations in diet or temp.  Think of them as having a gene that is a "wildcard" when it comes to color developement.  In some colonies all the roaches are near clones.  In others they look like multicolored confetti...


So in other words, this is an example of polymorphism?


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## MrCrackerpants (Apr 23, 2011)

Thanks for sharing your pictures.


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## Immortalis79 (Apr 24, 2011)

I have a roach that looks a lot like the female in the first picture...


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