# Dubia roach egg case



## OxDionysus (Aug 14, 2008)

I ordered some Dubia roaches and my 2 females arrived dead but one of them had an egg case hanging out of it. I carefully pulled it out and put it in ICU, but what are the chances they will hatch? I can see they are partially developed

Reactions: Informative 1


----------



## K-TRAIN (Aug 14, 2008)

OxDionysus said:


> I ordered some Dubia roaches and my 2 females arrived dead but one of them had an egg case hanging out of it. I carefully pulled it out and put it in ICU, but what are the chances they will hatch? I can see they are partially developed


im not an expert on B. Dubia, but i have worked with them and i dont think they'll hatch (most of the time) they normally go back into the female, from my knowledge.

but im not sure, theres others on here that could give a better answer then i could.


----------



## arachyd (Aug 14, 2008)

Dubia have live births. I doubt there is any chance of it hatching.


----------



## GOMER113 (Aug 14, 2008)

Is a B. dubia egg case about 1/4" wide and 1" long and white in color?


----------



## OxDionysus (Aug 14, 2008)

GOMER113 said:


> Is a B. dubia egg case about 1/4" wide and 1" long and white in color?


well its kinda yellowish and dark in the middle of the eggs, I will post pics when I get home. Sucks the Females died!


----------



## GOMER113 (Aug 14, 2008)

^Thanks.  The reason I asked, and I feel really stupid for this, is because I saw a few of those come out of some of the roaches I would feed my Ts.  I thought it was their guts, but didn't understand why they weren't connected to anything.

Now I realize... I thought the adult females were sub-adult males and I was feeding those off thinking that I didn't need them because I had plenty of mature males. :wall:   No wonder their reproduction output sucked!  

Sorry to hear about your females.


----------



## OxDionysus (Aug 14, 2008)

I think they might hatch, they look more developed today, I can even see eyes...










and this was my hisser pushing out a case before it sucked it back in


----------



## arachyd (Aug 14, 2008)

Those are more developed than I expected. They extend them to adjust humidity (I think). It would be cool if they did hatch.


----------



## Galapoheros (Aug 16, 2008)

Yeah these roaches give live birth.  I've read they expose the eggs to dry them out, the "humidity" thing like was mentioned.  They bring them back in and give live birth several days later.  Aborting the eggs is probably a survival response when they are being killed.  I guess there is a chance in some cases that some nymphs are developed enough to survive the attack that killed the mother roach, that's what I've always thought anyway, I haven't read that anywhere.  I'd like to know if those hatch that way too.  There's prob some more info about that on this site but I'm kind of lazy right now so I'll just watch yours for now.


----------



## clam1991 (Aug 16, 2008)

i cant wait till my hissers have some kids...


----------



## Matt K (Aug 18, 2008)

...It makes me crazy that no one makes use of the internet.....:wall: :wall: 

Live-bearing roaches produce eggs in the ovary chamber.  Then the ootheca (cluster of eggs) is extruded so that it can be retracted into a brood chamber that is below the ovary chamber.  Here the ootheca sits until it hatches.  The extruding of the ootheca occurs because it is the only way to move them from the ovary chamber to the brood chamber.  It has nothing to do with drying them out, humidity, or anything else.  They do dry just a bit in the process but are re-hydrated after retraction into the mothers moist body.  Generally aborted ootheca will not hatch even if the eggs continue to develope, because the challenge is to have them wet enough to hatch without drowning them and keeping them from contracting bacterial or fungal infection in the process.

If the mother is not receiving enough food, water, or otherwise improper husbandry she will not retract the ootheca, opting to drop it and start over for conserving her bodily resources.

*www.roachforum.com*

Illustrations of this process are available in the book: _Cockroaches_, authored by _Bell, Roth, and Nalepa_, viewable online even.


----------



## Rochelle (Aug 18, 2008)

Matt K said:


> ...It makes me crazy that no one makes use of the internet.....:wall: :wall:
> 
> Live-bearing roaches produce eggs in the ovary chamber.  Then the ootheca (cluster of eggs) is extruded so that it can be retracted into a brood chamber that is below the ovary chamber.  Here the ootheca sits until it hatches.  The extruding of the ootheca occurs because it is the only way to move them from the ovary chamber to the brood chamber.  It has nothing to do with drying them out, humidity, or anything else.  They do dry just a bit in the process but are re-hydrated after retraction into the mothers moist body.  Generally aborted ootheca will not hatch even if the eggs continue to develope, because the challenge is to have them wet enough to hatch without drowning them and keeping them from contracting bacterial or fungal infection in the process.
> 
> ...


Very well put and extremely informative without being overly verbose. This should be a sticky. :clap: :clap: :clap: 
You rock, Matt.


----------

