Assasin Bugs question

Nikos · Mar 11, 2005

I keep some orange spoted assasin bugs (could be the infamous mombo??? anyone has a specie description about them?) and I was wondering what is the best method of keeping them in order to reproduce them.

I keep them together since 1 month now and the eggs are not hatching...what do you guys think it's the problem?

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 11, 2005

Eggs can take two months.

ghost_tomb · Mar 11, 2005

two months????

WOW no wonder its taking awhile for mine to hatch.

How longer till hatching is it when the eggs turn red and how many eggs tend to die?

As for the mobos i'm sure if you search for assassin bugs you'll find a thread that links to a page with info on them, the threads about keeping white spots and reds together i think.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 11, 2005

Normally almost all eggs hatch --but that doesn't mean you can't kill them accidentally.

Unfortunately the white and red spot assassins do cross. Different species should not be kept together. All three assassins types probably can cross. The P."mombo" were collected in Mombo, Usambar.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 11, 2005

A friend in Europe told me pretty much everyone in Europe has hybrids and pure stock is not easy to find (if at all). There's a good chance you have hybrids if you don't have the source information.
Here's some pics and a little info on assassins: http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/elytraandantenna/MantidsAssassins/

Nikos · Mar 12, 2005

MantidAssassins said:
Eggs can take two months.

thanks for the info.
I was under the impression that the eggs needed only 3-4 weeks to hatch

MantidAssassins said:
The P."mombo" were collected in Mombo, Usambar.

based only on a collection location I guess it's not enough to make them a seperate specie, right?
THey can also be cross-breeds of the rhadamanthus/biguttata, correct?

P.S.: I'm definately not too experienced with platymeris spp. but I guess that the above stament of mine is just common sence.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 12, 2005

vardoulas said:
thanks for the info.
I was under the impression that the eggs needed only 3-4 weeks to hatch

based only on a collection location I guess it's not enough to make them a seperate specie, right?
THey can also be cross-breeds of the rhadamanthus/biguttata, correct?

P.S.: I'm definately not too experienced with platymeris spp. but I guess that the above stament of mine is just common sence.

Hatching is affected greatly by humidity and temperature, about the fastest they'll hatch is 30 days (possibly quicker at 95F or so). P. "mombo" are not crossbreeds but what you have most likely is. Hybrids can look like any of them.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 12, 2005

Do you have any information on where yours came from?

Nikos · Mar 13, 2005

Hatching is affected greatly by humidity and temperature, about the fastest they'll hatch is 30 days (possibly quicker at 95F or so)

Thanks for the info, I'll try to seperate the eggs and keep them warmer and with more humidity.

Do you have any information on where yours came from?

They are bred in Europe for years so it's not possible to know where they originaly came from..

Also about the "mombos" I'm not able to find anything specific about them...

However in a Czech journal called SKLIPKAN I can find the following:

PAGE 114 next to the Longhorn beetle photo. Twice we visited a small town Mombo.....
Under the tree bark i found colourful assassins bugs Platymeris which were different from those bred in The Czech Republic since they had yellow spots on their wings and red ones on their legs. Later in my breed I had individuals of the same colour as Platymeris biguttatus.

So from the above you can understand that the mombos might be cross breeds.

423 · Mar 13, 2005

I'm keeping these little buggers, they look like the "mombos" in this link: http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/elytraandantenna/MantidsAssassins/Platymeris_mombo.htm ,and they're about 4 centimetres and more in length.
Would you say that these are in fact "mombos" or are they some kind of crossbreeds?
Either way they're quite interresting animals.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 13, 2005

vardoulas said:
However in a Czech journal called SKLIPKAN I can find the following:

So you do understand then that P."mombo"s are a wild-caught variety?

That is very different from the hybrids you have which are a cross between P.biguttata and P.rhadamanthus.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 13, 2005

423 said:
I'm keeping these little buggers, they look like the "mombos" in this link: http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/elytraandantenna/MantidsAssassins/Platymeris_mombo.htm ,and they're about 4 centimetres and more in length.
Would you say that these are in fact "mombos" or are they some kind of crossbreeds?
Either way they're quite interresting animals.

You might have to have the eggs for comparison because a picture might not be enough. I've not seen the hybrids in person and am not sure the difference except they should be smaller and with more narrow leg banding.

Admittedly since they all probably cross they may well all be supspecies or varieties of one species (even though described as different species). Still a subspecies cross is a hybrid. I imagine the hybrids are very nice but ought to be labeled as what they are when traded.

423 · Mar 13, 2005

Oki doki. Thanks for the answer.

Nikos · Mar 13, 2005

MantidAssassins said:
Admittedly since they all probably cross they may well all be supspecies or varieties of one species (even though described as different species). Still a subspecies cross is a hybrid. I imagine the hybrids are very nice but ought to be labeled as what they are when traded.

423's photo look a lot like the mombos in the link you gave me.
Also the fact that (at least to my knowledge) there is not a single scientific paper about the mombos, I still believe that they are just hybrids.

MantidAssassins said:
So you do understand then that P."mombo"s are a wild-caught variety?

Cannot understand/assume anything based on this.

MantidAssassins said:
That is very different from the hybrids you have which are a cross between P.biguttata and P.rhadamanthus.

??? how can you be so sure about this?

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 13, 2005

You are trying to say that a strain of Platymeris caught in the wild is the same thing as a hybrid created in captivity. You are welcome to believe what you want but are urged to use a little common sense.

Nikos · Mar 13, 2005

I'm not trying to say anything and as much as I can I definately use common sence.

Perhaps you missed the last sentence of the part of the articles that I quoted above who was writen by the person whocollected some platymeris from mombo.

Let me repeat it:

Later in my breed I had individuals of the same colour as Platymeris biguttatus.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 13, 2005

You bring up supporting information that the ones known as P."mombo" were in fact wild-caught.

I have the 3/2003 Sklipkan issue also.

P."mombo" throw an abberant form where nymphs are only black and white and adults looks sort of like P.biguttata. Hybrid biguttata/rhadamanthus shouldn't throw that form. Do you have some in your culture? Oddly enough if you put hatchlings of all three together you couldn't really tell them apart except for the abberant form P.'mombo'.

BTW: the original description is P.biguttata (not P.biguttatus) -us does match the genus but it's not the original description and can't be changed.

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 13, 2005

Here's a photo of the abberant form. They're normal in any P."mombo" culture.

Steven · Mar 14, 2005

Just curious,.. not getting involved in this discussion,...

but do you have a direct exporter from "Mombo" who provides you WC spec. "mombo's" to assure you don't end up with an inbred-cultivation ?
i don't know how many generations of "mombo's" are allready in the hobby but it seems to me some fresh bloodlines are important to achieve a solid group of this "colorform" (or how must we call it ?)

Elytra and Antenna · Mar 14, 2005

They haven't been around very long. Nice tangent though.

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