Greetings, AC Family!
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
If you have a fascination for nature, you're in the right place.
On this channel, we take a look at the amazing world of ants, and even explore pet ant keeping,
as a hobby.
But did you know that a big part of keeping pet ant colonies, for most people, also involves
keeping colonies of other insects?
Today, for a change, we will turn our attention from the ant colonies we all love on this
channel, and turn our inquiring eyes toward the colonies of insects our ants depend on
for food.
This week, we go from ants, to cockroaches!
Feeder cockroaches, that is!
Cockroaches, though repulsive to many people throughout the world, are our ants' favourite
protein food source, and are actually quite fascinating creatures in their own right.
Today we take a look at the two species of feeder roaches that I breed as food to our
4 ant colonies on this channel, and explore what their cockroach societies are like.
They happen to be two of the most popular feeder cockroaches for ant colonies and other
insect-eating exotic pets.
You won't want to miss all of this amazing cockroach info ahead, so keep watching until
the end.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's put away that bug spray and explore why cockroaches are
also some of the coolest of insects, not just as ant food, in this episode of the AntsCanada
Ant Channel.
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Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
Cockroaches, they're perhaps the most notorious and hated of all domestic insect pests, even
more so than ants.
They're associated with being avid carriers of germs, disease, bacteria, and more.
But you may be surprised to know that cockroaches which belong to the order called Blattodea,
are comprised of about 4,600 species and only 30 of these 4,600 species of cockroaches are
human house pests.
The rest live out in forests, jungles, and other habitats away from human homes.
The two species of cockroaches that I feed to my ants, which we will look at today, are
examples of such non-pest cockroach species.
First, presenting my Dubia Roach colony, scientific name Blaptica dubia.
These large cockroaches grow to about 4 to 4.5 cm in length.
Their exoskeletons are strong, and the ants aren't able to eat them.
You can tell the adult males and females apart because adult males have huge wings while
females have what are called tegmina, which are small wing stubs.
Though the males have fully developed wings as adults, they rarely ever fly.
If dropped from a high altitude they could use the wings to direct their landing but
don't actually take off like most true flying insects do.
Juveniles, as seen here, have a mottled brown colour.
These roaches love to eat fruits.
I offer a variety of different juicy fruits.
The cockroaches are able to acquire all the moisture they need from these juicy fruits.
I do my best to offer them a variety, because as you know, your pets are what their food
eats, and any nutrients the cockroaches take in through their diet, ultimately ends up
in the bellies of our ants, so gut-loading the cockroaches using a varied diet is a must.
Now, one of the annoying things, we here in the tropics need to deal with though, are
wild ants mooching off the cockroaches' food supplies.
If you look carefully you will see wild ghost ants drinking from this orange slice.
Hmmm...
And here you'll find a wild black crazy ant.
Perhaps I should try applying baby powder on the outside of these cockroach enclosures.
Check out the pattern and colours of the undersides of these Dubia roaches!
I find they're actually quite attractive up close.
I love watching them eat.
If you look carefully at their faces, you'll notice that their eyes actually wrap around
the entire side of their head.
This helps them avoid predators.
As a lover of all insects, it is always hard for me to feed these guys to the ants, but
I do know the ants do acquire some great protein from them.
I just make sure to crush them swiftly prior to feeding to lessen their suffering.
Some of you who have seen our previous videos involving feedings may notice that the cockroaches
still move despite being pre-crushed and this is because nervous cells called ganglia run
along the center of their body, which is why even if you completely decapitate a roach,
they are still capable of movement.
I usually feed these adults to the Fire Nation, as the fire ants are able to benefit from
their high meat content, as well as penetrate their exoskeletons effectively.
The Fire Nation can fully consume the meat of 1 adult Dubia roach in a matter of a few
hours.
One of the most viewed videos on this channel involved the Fire Nation consuming an adult
female cockroach that gave birth while it was being devoured.
In that video you see the babies being born, and they're stark white in colour.
Newborn Dubia roaches are white, like these nymphs here.
These must have just been born a few hours ago.
Aren't they cute?
What's interesting about Dubia roaches is that they are live bearers.
A female Dubia roach will give birth to an egg sack and then pull this egg sack back
inside herself and incubate the eggs until babies emerge, a process called ovoviviparity.
A female can give birth to 20-40 live young at a time.
These young shed their skin 7 times, growing 25% each time before reaching adulthood.
This sub-adult here is whitish in colour because it had just molted.
As the exoskeleton hardens, it will darken to its normal brownish cryptic colour.
What's amazing is these roaches can live up to 2 yrs!
They actually make interesting pets, but I do my best not to get too attached, because
after all, they are our ant colonies' beef!
Guys, should we name them?
Leave your suggestions in the comments section!
Or would giving them an official name make them harder to feed to our ants.
Haha!
Now while these large Dubia roaches here are live bearing cockroaches, and don't lay eggs,
our next colony of roaches actually do lay egg sacs.
Meet Blatta lateralis, Turkistan Cockroaches, often called red runners due to their quick
speed.
In the pet trade, they are simply known as "lats".
These are a smaller species of cockroach.
Adult males have wings, just like the Dubias, but unlike the Dubias, the males are known
to actively fly.
The females are wingless and are a gorgeous crimson brown colour.
Females lay an egg sac known as an ootheca.
Look at these Oothecae laying here.
From these will hatch little tiny cockroach nymphs.
I was lucky enough to catch one female in the process of birthing an ootheca.
Check it out!
You can actually see her as she contracts her abdomen muscles to lay the eggs into the
open end of the ootheca.
This process of depositing eggs into the ootheca will continue over several hours and she will
continue to carry this ootheca with her for awhile afterwards, until she zips up the open
end and drops it.
I find the ootheca to look kind of like a purse.
Soon when the babies are ready to emerge, the ootheca much like a purse will open up
from the top and the baby lats will be born.
I feed these lats to the Golden Empire, the Dark Knights, and our new trap-jaw ant colony,
the Jawbreakers.
Their exoskeletons are a bit softer and are easier to get into than the Dubias.
So what do you say?
What should we name this roach colony?
Leave your answer in the comments section!
Now the only thing I don't like about this species of cockroach is they expel a very
pungent and gross defensive odour when alarmed and at times it can be pretty strong.
I just hold my breath every time I have to reach into their enclosure to feed them to
our ants.
As far as housing goes for both species, I keep them in a plastic bin full of egg cartons
and toilet paper rolls.
The environments must be kept relatively dry to keep mold from growing.
I feed them a mix of veggies and fruit and also offer them dog kibble.
Their enclosures must be kept clean at all times because they can get messy especially
when the droppings collect.
I feel cockroaches are pretty fantastic creatures and the more you get to know them, the less
disgusting they seem, and the more fascinating they become.
Some people keep these, as well as other cockroach species as pets.
So what do you think?
Do you think keeping cockroaches are as cool as keeping pet ants?
If you decide to keep pet ants, perhaps you might consider feeder roaches, too, as an
alternative to crickets, mealworms, and superworms?
They also happen to be more nutritious for ants than those aforementioned.
Hope you enjoyed this week's video AC Family!
It's ant love, and just for this week, roach love forever!
AC Family, were you grossed out or did you find these cockroaches to be cool?
For you AC Inner Colony members, I've placed a hidden cookie for you here, if you would
just like to watch the cockroaches in this video doing their thing with less narration.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the week.
In last week's AC Question of the Week, we asked:
What does "pantropical" mean?
Congratulations to Omar Salloum who correctly answered:
pantropical means: distributed throughout the tropics﻿
Congratulations Omar you just won a free ebook handbook from our shop!
For this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What is the technical term for a cockroach's egg sac?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free ant t-shirt from
our shop!
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if you liked this video.
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