Different varieties of Giant Burrowing Cockroach (Macropanesthia rhinoceros) ?

I was looking for info on Shinglebacks and found this interesting photograph of an Australian Bush Cockroach that looks a lot like the Giant Burrowing Cockroach, it is the 21 st photo from the top of the page. Australia, Queensland, Dajarra. Natural History.

I erroneously thought it was a Giant Burrowing Cockroach, which it is not, but this got me thinking about other Australian native cockroaches and after doing some more research I found this article that explains more about our many different types of native cockroaches, including a type of burrowing cockroach from Western Australia that is very similar to the Giant Burrowing Cockroach from the east coast but the males of this type have wings unlike the wingless males of the east coast variety. Interesting stuff.

http://natureitems.blogspot.com.au/2006/11/australian-cockroaches-can-be.html

After trawling this forum I learned a massive amount of important information about these critters.I never knew you could get them in the US or that they are considered rare. Plus the fact they only reproduce once a year is fascinating. And the fact you have to be careful about feeding them Eucalyptus was something I never would have thought of. I also found it interesting that they can bite, this is something that is never mentioned, or the fact they are one of the only roaches that is known to kill and eat other roaches( this is what I inferred from posts I read on here). Plus the fact the babies have to stay with the parents for a while to get the right bacteria is interesting. What I thought was a relatively basic animal is turning out to be much more complex.

There is so much misinformation about them around online, so glad this forum is able to provide all the correct info.:biggrin:

Found this video by Miss Phantom Fangs here in Australia about them that shows the adults with some babies.
[YOUTUBE]ueuFFmJIWQs[/YOUTUBE]

So these look more interesting and easier to care for than Shinglebacks so I was thinking about getting one or two of these as pets, if anyone has any helpful advice on troubleshooting when it comes to there care I would be interested to hear someone else's opinion before I go ahead with any purchase. Thanks.

These guys are easy to care for, just give them decayed hardwood leaves such as oak and a deep substrate and you are good! Also, be sure to separate the male form the female if you are expecting her to give birth, the males will sometimes eat the babies. In the wild she would evict him from her burrow, but in captivity he has nowhere to go and keeps coming back to her burrow. Also, any roach will eat each other if short on food, my Rhabdoblatta formosana colony went without food for a few hours, and I found a freshly molted adult that had its abdomen and wings completely eaten off!

I paid up and got a pair from somebody that left the hobby. One bit me but I could tell it thought I was something to eat, it was pretty weak. They seem kind of smart for an invert, something like the tortoise of inverts. That reminds me I probably need to take the male out now. I'm curious to see the winged male of that large sps you mentioned. Sometimes I see them at night checking out which leaves they want to pull down their hole. Kind of funny looking, "hmmm, yeah I like this one." I don't see them very often though, hardly ever really.

Wow thanks for the really interesting feedback! These types of insider tips are exactly the type of stuff I love to read about.

The observation about the female chasing away the male after birth is really interesting! I never knew this! These roaches seem more like mammals than insects. I wonder though if the female ever eats the babies also. And do we know if the babies only need the bacteria from the adults poo or if they need mucus from the adults mouth? If they only needed the poo then I could consider housing them separately and just transferring poo into their enclosure. But I read the mother looks like she is protecting the young and the babies follow her around, so perhaps it is better for their social development to keep them with the mother.

I was always kind of worried about leaving the babies in with the adults as I suspect the reason they like dog food so much is because as scavengers, in the wild they probably browse on dead carrion from time to time, as they are still cockroaches after all.

Its good to know the bite doesn't hurt, but I always worry whenever an animal that lives in dirt bites as the wound could be contaminated by harmful pathogens quite easily. I would never let anyone else's kids handle them, I am surprised schools embrace this practice.

Yeah the winged males of that other type in Western Australia is interesting. I found some pictures of them. I guess this shows how they lost their wings through evolution to specialize as ground dwellers and fill the niche of getting rid of dead Eucalyptus leaves. It's amazing how they lost the wings after having them, kind of the way mammals evolved out of the water and then went back in.

I googled Calolampra and came across different photos some that showed winged males and others that showed winged females so who knows.

One thing that worries me is Giant Burrowing Cockroaches aka Rhino roaches take 4-7 years to mature, and then live until 8-12 years, and when you consider they only reproduce once a year that leaves them with only 4-5 years when they can actively reproduce, meaning each female Rhino roach only produces about 100 babies in her life time if you consider the average litter size is about 20 babies. When you consider all the factors it looks like these roaches will never be easy to find, as even here in Australia although some very select pet shops may have one or two pairs in stock, I daresay they are all coming from the same source.

It makes me wonder how genetically diverse these roaches are in captivity. I wonder if the people who sell them in Australia have diverse stock from a large geographic range or if they are using stock from a very small limited range around Cairns? I wonder if I could get a license to collect invertebrates and go up and down the east coast of Australia for say one thousand kilometers and collect a pair every ten kilometers and then go inland one hundred kilometers and repeat the process. That would give the hobby 20 pairs of very genetically diverse stock to start a proper captive breeding population that will last a long time. Also I would document where I collected the roaches, with photographs and their exact locations and collect live and dead leaves to take back for consultation with a botanist and also consult an invertebrate expert to make sure everything I collected was a Rhino roach. But I guess the demand is so small that going to all that effort would not make any sense.

But it is a worry how long they take to reproduce, I could see the pet trade could easily wipe them out in the wild. That is why we need a genetically viable captive population so we don't need to keep collecting from the wild.

I wonder why nobody has investigated the species of Eucalyptus that they feed on and collected seeds and grown seedlings to sell to specialized invertebrate breeders etc. It seems strange so little is known about this roach's feeding habits. We definitely have so many different types here I wouldn't know what to feed them either, also I am surprised people use Eucalyptus in tea, and that the leaves are found in health food stores in the US, as all Eucalyptus contain toxins, that is why nothing grows near them, as their roots contaminate the surrounding ground with toxins. The Rhino roach probably took advantage of this and that is why it lives near them, not only will nothing go near their burrows but nothing will eat them because they would be known to contain toxins.

I found this photo of a cage set up that an expert has for this animal. http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2009/04/giant-burrowing.html

At first sight it seemed rather small. But then I guess it is captivity and if they sit in their burrows most of the time then I wouldn't say such a small enclosure was a problem. But who knows to what extend they roam around at night and how far they move away from their burrows. Also considering you can never mimic the large depth they dig to in the wild, being about one meter down, I wonder if it would be possible to forget about using substrate altogether and just house the roach with a piece of bark? After all I would like to see it rather than just be looking at substrate all the time. I know it may seem cruel but I think if I feed it correctly then I don't see the harm, as after all it is living in an artificial environment anyway and unless you can provide the natural depth they dig their burrows to, then they are always going to be scratching on the bottom anyway.

My only worry is providing them with enough humidity if I don't use substrate. Do you think this would work? I could place a damp paper towel over the lid or something to keep humidity high instead. Also regarding temperature, it gets quite cold here in Brisbane in winter, as I know it does in their natural range further north, but in the wild they are living at such a depth that the earth warms them, while in a shallow container they get no benefit from digging and are living in soggy cold soil. I wonder if placing a hot water bottle beside the enclosure each night during winter would help to keep them warm enough.

My main interest in keeping them without substrate would be so I could be more hands on as I would like to test their intelligence and see if I can train one to come when called.

Sorry for the long reply, thanks for your help.

I don't believe the female eats the babies, as long as she has some source of food. I believe after they mature, they can live up to ten years, so that's still quite a bit of time to breed. Another thing worth noting is that nymphs should not have deep substrate in captivity, or they will often have bad molts and die. In the wild they dig extensive burrows that don't collapse, but that is hard to replicate in captivity, so the substrate often collapses on the nymphs when they molt and kills them. They still need a substrate, just not too deep. I think the nymphs would easily dry out and die if kept without substrate. The adults could probably last longer without a sub, but I think they would be stressed and probably wouldn't breed. Just my two cents. I don't actually own these, but I have done a lot of research on them over the years, and I definitely plan on getting some in the future.

---------- Post added 09-04-2015 at 08:54 PM ----------

Reading up more, I found that the nymphs can be kept with the female up to 6 months, but any longer than that and she may eat them.

Wow how do you find all this great information! You sound like an expert keeper. Like me your doing your research before hand

Very interesting info about the female, this is something I will keep in mind. I have been reading about them on roachforum and there is still a lot to learn it seems. I just read that some people think keeping the babies more humid for the first six months and then less humid after that is the way to go. Apparently these roaches have a 10 per cent mortality rate.

Also apparently they dig the deep burrows to stay cool in summer, so high temps will kill them. I guess though the burrows keep them at room temperature in winter.

Also it appears some people think the Eucalyptus leaves they eat in the wild are not toxic, and that they select ones specially that are not toxic. So I guess it is really important that we know exactly what this species of leaf is as I just read on roach forum that if you feed them any old Eucalyptus leaf and it is toxic it can take between 6-18 months for the bad leaves toxins to build up and kill the roaches, so you wouldn't even know you were harming them until it was too late.

I actually have family in the north within their habitat range, maybe I should go visit and document them in the wild and take photos of their native habitat and the types of leaves I find in their burrows? I won't collect any as I don't believe in just taking them from the wild, I don't even know if that is legal or not here. But it would be interesting to finally put the Eucalyptus question to rest.

I might even go looking around pet stores in Brisbane and see if I can find any for sale. So far I find them selling online at roughly the same prices as you guys have to pay in the US and elsewhere, it seems even here they are quite rare and little known.

Edit I just read your blog, which I really enjoy by the way, and your Venus Flytrap reminded me of when I used to keep CP's, I kept them for a while back in the late 90's early 2000's. Anyway it reminded me of how here in Australia we can't pot the VFT in our peat as it is known as sedge peat and contains minerals that are different to the peat found in the northern hemisphere.

It also reminded me of when I had an interest in Phragmipedium kovachii and how growers keep it in Coconut Husk Chips also known as coir, a substrate made out of coconut shell husks, and how you have to wash the bark extensively before using it to get rid of all the harmful salts. I also read somewhere you need to neutralize the salts and tanins by adding epsom salts and calcium nitrate.

Although the coco peat is different to coir, in that coco peat is ground up coconut shell husks, I wonder if keeping these roaches in coco peat would mean that the peat could contain salt levels that exceed what they normally come into contact with in the wild? I wonder if the substrate could also explain some of the deaths or if it has any bearing on anything. I wonder if the roaches ever ingest the coco peat?

To my mind if your going to treat the coconut husks for salts, its crazy to then use the fine coco peat and not treat it for salts, especially when your housing a wood eating animal such as these roaches.

Edit again lol, just wondering if these roaches select non-toxic Eucalypt leaves in the wild, or if its simply the case that the leaves found where they live are not toxic? I mean it seems strange that given the choice between toxic leaves and say oak or carrot they choose the toxic leaves, this seems to suggest they can't distinguish between toxic leaves and non-toxic.

It would be interesting to know if given a choice between toxic and non-toxic Eucalypt which one they would choose, maybe if given a choice they would choose the safe one. Who knows. If they can't tell the difference this shows how delicate eco systems are, and how it's incredible these roaches exist at all.

I also see a lot of people use coco peat as a substrate, so guess I am not debunking any myth. But to me I probably will try something artificial as a substrate and completely different as I want to be able to see them and observe them, and enjoy them.

I just saw this blog about them, it seems the person was feeding them some species of Eucalypt that don't even occur naturally in their range. Still it is an interesting read. Until I can find an accurate map detailing the range of these roaches I will feed mine on a diet that doesn't include Eucalyptus, it's too dangerous as we know nothing about what type they eat in the wild. So frustrating.

http://rhinoroach.blogspot.com.au/

Last question, does anyone know if this roach is the only roach known to bear live young?

I'm a member of roach forum too, that is where I have done most of my research, along with reading various books, and roach keeping websites. Interesting stuff about the eucalyptus leaves, would love to see what your findings are. A vendor here in the U.S. used to sell eucalyptus leaves fit for rhino roach consumption, (don't know what species of eucalyptus), but unfortunately they shut down their website this year. I'm surprised they cost that much over there, I thought for sure that they'd be cheaper in their homeland. At least you can find them in pet stores over there. Thanks for reading my blog, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Over here we have compressed coconut fiber blocks, which you put in water and then it expands into a lot of substrate. I have never had to wash salts out, but then again the process of soaking it and then squeezing the water out may wash out a lot of the salts. I use it as substrate for all my bugs, I sometimes mix in long fibered sphagnum moss and dead leaves if I want a more "organic" look. With these guys a mix of sand, coco fiber, and dead leaves should make a more than satisfactory substrate. I've also read that blog, unfortunately there has not been any updates for a few years. There are many, many, many roaches that give live birth, Blaberus sp, Gromphadorhina sp, Panchlora sp, Rhabdoblatta sp, really there is too many to list here.

I wouldn’t worry about genetic diversity with these or other inverts much, it’s been all mixed up out there in the wild. From what I’ve studied, heard and read, it’s not such a big problem in animals either as many people think it is. For example if there was one gravid fly left on the planet, there would probably be millions of flies in no time until the end of life on earth, or until they evolved into something else and they all would be from that one fly.

Thanks for the replies guys.

It's a shame that website you mentioned has shut down. Maybe they shut down due to lack of demand for the roaches?

Yeah it would have been interesting to know the species of Eucalyptus they were offering.

I guess it would be too difficult to try and breed these critters with a different genetic line at every pairing as you would require it to be much more common in captivity for that to be viable, which I don't see it will ever be. Plus they are found on Magnetic Island, which would have a bottle necked population.

People say these roaches are easy to care for, but I reckon they are actually quite tricky and a bit of a balancing act. I just read that someone was keeping them in less humid conditions and that required them to be given a source of water to drink all the time. They kept them drier because they found keeping them humid made all the crisp leaves go soggy. So they seem like a challenge to me.

Not sure if this link will work but I found this pdf that has tons of information on these roaches. If the link doesn't work try googling 'Husbandry Manual for Giant Burrowing Cockroach' - it is a must read for anyone interested in this species!

http://nswfmpa.org/Husbandry Manuals/Published Manuals/Invertebrata/Giant Burrowing Cockroach.pdf

So far I have found them for sale online here, although there are probably more places, googles search algorithm doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be, it can be hard to find stuff with them sometimes. What do you think of these prices, are they comparable to the prices in the US? Adults seem to sell here for about $50.00-$100.00. Although the exchange rate makes them much cheaper here at the moment.

http://www.insectfarm.com.au/pets.php

http://www.thegreenscorpion.com.au/shopshow.toy?catnid=44072

http://www.allthingsslimey.com.au/www.allthingsslimey.com.au/For_Sale.html

https://www.amazingamazon.com.au/giant-burrowing-cockroach-for-sale.html

http://www.extremereptilesupplies.com.au/index.php?cPath=20

http://www.minibeastwildlife.com.au/live-invertebrates/

http://www.mini-beasts.com/

I found this picture of the Magnetic Island variety http://magneticisland.s4space.com.au/insects.html

Also interesting I found this picture someone has posted on projectnoah, showing clearly a Rhino roach living outside the stated range all the literature about them quotes, with this one being found south of Brisbane, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they are even found around Brisbane. I might have to go looking for them!

http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/243786150

Also found another article about how Japanese scientists are strapping microprocessors to them and controlling them :sarcasm: http://users.tpg.com.au/adslrada/cockroaches/roboroach.html

Ugh I just see these early Japanese experiments have lead to someone else creating the 'RoboRoach' kit which allows you to control a roach on a phone via wireless using an microprocessor. http://www.goexplore.net/science-articles/meet-robo-roach/

So I just came back from scoping out a couple of pet shops here in Brisbane. I was going to take pictures but felt uncomfortable doing this so didn't bother.

The first one I went to was Pet Barn in north Brisbane on Newmarket road in the 'Homezone' shopping center precinct. I browsed the store for about ten minutes and came across a lot of reptile enclosures with snake skins draped in them. I also came across a lot of fish. It looked like they didn't acually sell pets, but just stocked pet accessories as there were heaps of pet accessories. I couldn't find a staff member to speak to so just left.

The second store I visited was the Pet Superstore on Stafford Rd in northern Brisbane. It had a huge small animal and reptile section, which included a large array of bearded dragons and pythons. It was the first time I have seen a bearded dragon, and they had babies and an adult pair. There was a small gap between the enclosure and the plastic panel on the front of the adults enclosure and they were trying to test it for weakness by scraping at it with their claws. They seemed pretty aware of what was going on around them, more than I thought they would be. They also had pink blue tongue lizards and blue tongue lizards. I have to say the reptile and inverts section was the least smelliest section of the store, and makes me realize I could never own a bird, dog or cat ever again.

They had invertebrates, labeling our bird eating spiders as 'whistling spiders' and they also had some scorpions. These were all displayed in plastic chinese food containers and all you could see was black substrate which was kind of disappointing. They did have a blue legged bird eating spider in a fish tank but all I could see was a webbed up section and couldn't see the spider. But they didn't have any Rhino roaches. I asked one of the staff about this and they said they could get Rhino roaches ordered in and that I should come back tomorrow as that is when their invertebrate guy is going to be working a shift. But I won't go back, instead I will just buy them online from a specialist invertebrate business if I do decide to get any.

So myth debunked, you can't easily get these guys in Australian pet stores. I think they used to be popular a few years ago, but since the recession I think the popularity has decreased, and in general I think interest in pet ownership has decreased, as everyone now days has Netflix and social media on their smartphones.

I told my family I was considering getting these roaches, and they just laughed at me, story of my life. Sometimes I wish I could just have mainstream interests, but I was always the kid at school who would walk around the ants who were scurrying across the foot path, while all the other kids just walked over them without a second thought.

Anyway when I was coming home I encountered some really rude drivers, someone turned across the road in front of me almost causing a crash, while another driver insisted on beeping me despite my reluctance to turn across a very busy main road as I waited for the green arrow to indicate I could safely make that turn. Brisbane turns to crap after 3 in the afternoon with the school run and soccer moms throwing their weight around in their big cars. In fact I have always found people in Brisbane to be generally rude and not very nice. The sooner I move from this city the better.

It's rare that they are for sale here in the US, that's why I grabbed them when they came up for sale, I paid $150 each for two sub-adults. Somebody had them that said they were having health problems so they were dumping all their stuff. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have $ from selling a few things because that's a lot of $ for a couple of roaches, imo. I've seen some vids of them in Asia, they seem kind of popular there. I've only seen them for sale a few times here in the US, I wasn't even looking for them when I saw the ad here on this site, I just jumped on it real fast because I had been thinking about them. This site has slowed down but it still has a pretty good for sale/trade section. Sounds like you have a good supply of other animals to purchase though, more than I imagined.

Most of the information you find online is secondhand or wild-caught only info. There's a series of articles in Invertebrates-Magazine and recapped in ACS pub of firsthand documented husbandry and life cycle details over multiple generations. A few details: babies do not require anything from adults and adults do eat them, especially males. Another fun fact is in captivity it is rare to get more than one set of young from a female.

Loving these fun facts. So much I don't know about these roaches. So your saying these guys are going to be incredibly hard to keep in captivity over a long period? How interesting. Is the lack of a female to produce more than one set of young because the female dies the next year or what? Your insights into these animals in captivity is much more interesting I find than any info on wild populations. Thankyou.

I don't see it like that. His experience there makes me think they are easy to care for but aren’t prolific reproducers over time, so that they may tend to remain a low supply invert unless very many people take part. The two I have have been very easy to care for, …leaves haha, so easy in captivity. The hard part might be for people to be patient in reproducing, not that they are hard to keep in captivity. I considered the temps you read about so I moved them to a cooler area. Before when it was hot, I could hear the female trying to dig deeper.

Yeah, they are easy to keep, but not very prolific.

Yeah they seem much easier to keep than other insects I have been looking into. I probably won't get time to investigate their wild habitat, as I don't really know what to look for and don't feel confident digging up holes in the ground in case they belong to more dangerous critters. I will see what I can do, but can't promise anything. Sorry to be a let down.

If you can talk about the rhino roaches as casually as you are in this thread, than you must be very very rich.

I read, I believe it was in Roth and Nalepa's Cockroaches: Their Ecology, Behavior, and Natural History book, that adults can occasionally be found roaming above ground at night or at dawn. Mainly males, the source said. I get the feeling that it's one of those cases of anecdotal abundance, maybe a particular season for increased random encounters, but of course I have no firsthand clues.

I bought a pair and raised them a while back. I separated the male from the female after a while and she had 18 young. She didn't eat them and I seperate them from her at about 5 months of age (apparently they leave their mother after a year of living with her). They make great pets, especially for kids as long as an adult is managing basic requirements