B. discoidalis died - what is this?

[KJE]

My husband found one of our B. discoidalis females dead the other day. She had something sticking out of her back end. I've attached 2 pictures of it to see if anyone can tell me what it is. It was kind of soft to the touch, almost like human skin. I was too afraid to cut it open. Any ideas as to what it is?

 

[Dark Raptor]

I had 2 similar accidents among my G. portentosa. They were females so I thought that it was deformed ootheca, but I believe that it is something connected with dammaged intenstine.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I had it happen to a female Blaptica dubia.
It ran around with it for a couple of days and acted normal, then finally died.
I think also, that it is caused by some sort of internal injury.

greets
Bernhard

 

[John J Starr Jr]

Interesting

While that looks very nasty in your picture I have had deaths from all five of my species in one form or another. It is nothing drastic if only one here and there pass away. In fact I feel that it is better to have them die off as soon as possible, that is the ones that are going to do it anyway.

This saves the food for the others, gets rid of sickly roaches, and eliminates any possible genetic defects that we are all producing with our constant over inbreeding of these animals. That is why I am proposing that many of us trade equal size and equal numbers of nymphs of the exact same species since we each are producing somewhat of our own genetic drift within our colonies.

BTW, I have noticed far less deaths and more frequent breedings from my Blaberus_parabolicus than from my Blaberus_discoidalis. The parabolicus look nearly identical to the discoidalis except that the parabolicus are a darker shade of brown as apposed to the blondish coloration of the discoidalis. The parabolicus are much much larger at about 2.5 inches in length for the females. If it would not offend the origional breeder I would nick name the parabolicus as Giant_Discoids. Parabolicus are a very chunky Blaberus roach as adults. While they are still skiddish of people and light they seem to be much more of a relaxed Blaberus than are the discoidalis, IMO. The parabolicus also seem to grow and become adults at about the same rate as the discoidalis. I have read that the parabolicus can live for over 2 years which is a big plus. I will let everybody know how they are doing as I see new offspring. I just cleaned out their cage and gave them fresh food so they should feel pretty good about life at this time.

WOW, what a parabolicus sales pitch, nope, none of my parabolicus are for sale. I am still waiting for the first babies of this species to show up by February_2006 if I am lucky.

So far the Blaberus_craniifer is the fastest moving and most hyper Blaberus in my collection. The Blaberus_discoidalis is second fastest moving and hyper and the Blaberus_parabolicus is third. The jury is still out on the Blaberus_fusca since they are still small nymphs. I started with very small nymphs of the Blaberus fusca but some of them are getting very very large. So far they seem much like the parabolicus for temperment.

All in all the Blaptica dubia seem to be absolutely the most relaxed and the slowest moving roach in my entire collection.

John J Starr Jr

 

[KJE]

Wow! Thanks for all the info.

So, I might have been touching roach intestine....figures!

 

[Ecilious]

Looks like a prolapse.