True Death Heads?

[Snakeman4life]

I received a small quantity of what I was told were true Death head roaches(Blaberus crainifer). The nymphs are much darker than my gigantea, fusca or discodalis nymphs and when i started to have them molt out into adults they had the jet black wings with a whitish pronatum. Some of the females are larger than my fusca males in terms of bulk but defintely not as large as my gigantea. What is throwing me off however is their" death head" marking is not very pronounced. Some of them have had their black wings fade to a very dark brown over time. They don't look to be as brown as the crainfer/fusca hybrids that I have seen on the net but i'm not so sure what they are any more.
Is it possible for them to be just a weak bloodline in the sense of not having a defined "deathhead" or are they just hybrids. The orginal stock came from wildcaughts in Mexico... years ago so maybe they are just interbred too much. On average the adults are larger than discodalis adults but slightly smaller than my fusca adults with the exception of a few. Sizewise- I think this pins them down to the crainifer species but yet they don't have that defined deathhead marking. Any ideas?

 

[t3h0wnerer]

Are there any without the death head markings?
Also there are a lot of hybrids out there so it could very well be one.

 

[Snakeman4life]

Are there any without the death head markings?
Also there are a lot of hybrids out there so it could very well be one.

None of them have a pronounced death head marking.... I am wondering if this may be bloodline related or is a true distingushing feature of the species

 

[RoachGirlRen]

I'm wondering if there isn't some kind of hybridism far back in their lines... I believe the marking is supposed to be fairly distinguished. However, I'm no expert by a long shot; perhaps someone who breeds 'em could tell you better.

 

[xelda]

Sounds like it's blood-line related since all the adults look the same.

 

[arachnocat]

I've seen some people selling black wing craniifers and "European" craniifers. Does anyone know what those are? I thought the ones with tan wings were just hybrids. I have a few specimens of the dark winged kind with little or no markings from the same colony. Might be due to inbreeding.

 

[Digby Rigby]

If it isnt black take it back

They shouldnt be fading over time. Death heads are fairly uniform in color. Black, lighter atthe edges maybe, light colored pronutum and the jack o lantern or death head. European are hybrids or something else. There is only one death head. Discoids are sometimes erroneously or ignorantly referred to as false death heads. They look nothing like death heads. In fact anything with the name false or Pseudo bears a resemblence to the genuine article. Post pictures so people can give you better answers. The only way a question like this can possibly be answered with any degree of accuracy is with pictures.

Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net