Roach Articles by Takeshi Yamada, Brooklyn, NY

In this article, I will write about Hisser mother and her babies. The article is quite extensive and long, so I divided into several sections with subtitles stated below.

1 {{{ BIRTH OF LIVE HISSER BABIES}}}

2 {{{ CARRYING A BABY FOR FIVE AND A HALF YEARS }}}

3 {{{ AIR DRYING? }}}

4 {{{ ABORTION OF OOTHECAS }}}

5 {{{ DEVELOPMENT OF BABIES INSIDE OF MOTHER}}}

6 {{{ NO FECES? }}}

7 {{{ DIGESTIVE BACTERIA }}}

8 {{{ HOW TO TREAT PREGNANT LADY HISSERS }}}

9 {{{ HOW OFTEN HISSERS CAN PRODUCE BABIES? }}}

10 {{{ IF YOU DO NOT WANT ANY BABIES }}}

11 {{{ STARTING IT OVER AGAIN }}} 

1 {{{ BIRTH OF LIVE HISSER BABIES}}}

After the successful pairing/mating, it takes about 60 days of incubation time to see the Hisser babies coming out from the tail-end of their Hisser mother. Technically speaking, these newly born babies are called “Neonates”. It seems as if she is giving birth to live babies like mammal unlike any “average” insects. Newly born Hisser babies are pristine ivory white except their eyes. The Mother usually give birth to 25-45 babies (about ½” size) at each time. Their bodies are supported by the hydrostatic pressure rather than solid exoskeletons (skeletal plates) at this point. You may also observe the elongated dorsal “heart” of each baby Hissers seeing though in the middle of his/her translucent abdominal cuticle. 

They will turn into grayish brown color in four to six hours after birth. Their exoskeletons also become more solid as they get darker. They stay at, on, below, under and around their mother for a long time unless you scare them. They are capable of running/climbing walls very quickly even immediately after their birth and start munching the foods around them. This is a very well-planned, well-prepared, and well-persecuted process to produce “capable offspring” from the very beginning. Imagine a newly born human baby who is capable of start running immediately and getting food by himself! 

How can Hissers achieve such successful baby-making? Female Hissers lay their eggs (or produce eggs) in a purse-like capsule known as ootheca (egg case). The ootheca is produced one by one gradually in her abdomen section of body (brood pouch) toward her end in “vertical” direction in “two lines”. The brood pouch is basically an empty section inside of her body until it is used for ootheca. (I have dissected the newly molted Hisser nymph just before becoming adult and amazed the size of its empty space inside. The brood pouch is supported by almost nothing but an exoskeleton!) Producing eggs in “two lines” rather than single line makes the ootheca more solid, thus it is easier for her to re-orient its direction later. Producing eggs side by side in “vertical” direction allows her to uniform the height of her ootheca. This is a remarkably well thought out and well-planned smart production method. 

2 {{{ CARRYING A BABY FOR FIVE AND A HALF YEARS }}}

I have done very interesting calculations regarding the subject. The life of (female) Hisser is about two and half years. The 60days of pregnancy period out of 913 days of life is 6.6%. A human female live about 87 years. Nine months of pregnancy period out of 1044 months of life is 0.9%. What this tells us is that Hisser mother grows her babies inside of her for more than seven times longer than human! Imagine a human mother carrying a baby for 66months or five and half year! No wonder their babies are well prepared and ready to live independently immediately after coming out from their mother’s tummy! 

3 {{{ AIR DRYING? }}}

When the outer shell of the ootheca are completely formed inside of her brood pouch, the mother Hisser extrude about the ¾ inch the ootheca (not the entire length of ootheca) outside of her body as if she is “air drying” it. In reality, the outer shell of the ootheca does not require extra air to solidify. The healthy ootheca viewed from outside is about ½ inch –long, yellowish, two-lined and solid. This behavior of Hisser mother often freaks out uninformed amateur pet insect lovers. (They should study more about their pets before getting them! The yahoo search-engine alone lists nearly 800 sites about “Madagascar Hissing Cockroach”. There are so many websites list care sheets although only a few websites have extensive articles about captive breeding of Hissers.) 

It is actually one of the most venerable time for the Hisser Mother in natural life to be attacked by her predators. Most of Hisser mothers even conduct this process usually apart from other cage mates to secure her and her ootheca’s safety. Although it seems she is doing this process very slowly, in reality, she is doing it “the fastest as she could”. It is why it takes much less time for her to retract the ootheca inside of her brood pouch (less than half an hour) although it takes sometimes over an hour to protrude the ootheca. 

What she is doing is actually a “re-orientation of the direction” of her ootheca. The width of a Hisser is wider than the thickness/height of its body, so, it is much easier for her to store her ootheca inside of her brood pouch in “horizontal” direction. Also, as Hisser babies wiggle out from the top (not side) of each egg of ootheca, it is essential for the ootheca to be placed inside of mother Hisser horizontally. 

According to the contemporary professional entomologists who specialize the tropical roaches, this behavior of Hisser is actually obtained by them in recent evolutional development. In any cases, the ootheca is protected safely from predators in this way. 

This “re-orientation of ootheca” can be viewed all year long in captive breeding of Hisser tanks. (Incidentally, Lobster roaches, one of the most commonly bred feeder insects, do the same thing to their oothecas.) 

4 {{{ ABORTION OF OOTHECAS }}}

Once in a while, a Hisser Mother aborts her ootheca. The aborted ootheca could be a solid and healthy-looking one. It could be full one inch long. Sometimes the ootheca is not even unified in shape – each egg look like a grain of rice comes out from her separately and simply drops on the ground. The aborted ootheca or each egg does not move. (Needless to say, this “unidentified object” suddenly appeared in their pet tank freaked many uninformed pet insect lovers.) 

The “abortion” is caused by stresses she suffered such as sudden environmental change and/or bad nutrition. It is commonly reported in websites that shipped mother Hissers tend to “abort” ootheca for the first one or two months after arriving to a new “home”. The more comfortable she feels, the faster she starts producing healthy ootheca. (See my other articles about how to prepare their new home more comfortable in “advanced breeding techniques”.) 

In either case, the “abandoned ootheca” is usually eaten by the cage mates. After all, it is made of very nutritious substances. (Incidentally, some of Hissers also eat their cast off skins for the same reason if you do not collect them for a display case of science projects.) 

There is a remarkable experiment regarding “saving” this “abandoned ootheca” in one of the Japanese Internet roach websites (written in Japanese) by a pet roach enthusiast. He picked up the “abandoned ootheca” (solid form) of another giant tropical roach carefully and placed it on sphagnum moss in a small closed container and keeps it with high humid and high temperature. In this way, in a week, he succeeded hatching 10 babies from the “abandoned ootheca”. He also featured many photographic records of this experiment in his website. 

Personally speaking, I tried his methods several times for “abandoned oothecas” (both solid forms and separated forms) of Hisses and Giganteus in the past. Nevertheless, I was not successful. 

5 {{{ DEVELOPMENT OF BABIES INSIDE OF MOTHER}}}

The eggs stay inside of her brood pouch until babies eat up the contents of the egg capsules and coming out from their egg capsules. At that point, those babies do not have strong mouth pads to actually “bite” anything, so, I assume they use “digestive enzyme” to “melt” their very soft foods when they consume it. 

I also assume that they are not capable to munch the wall of the brood pouch with their “digestive enzyme” but their mother knows they came out from their egg capsule by physical sensation as well as the chemical of the “digestive enzyme” released inside of her body. When enough number of babies start moving and fills inside of brood pouch, the mother Hisser decides “giving birth” to them. It seems Hisser mother give birth to “all of them at the same time” rather than giving a birth over a few days. It usually takes less than 20 minutes to complete the process of giving birth to them. This takes place all year long in captive breeding Hissers. At this point, I have no data about some of the babies trapped inside of her brood pouch due to their late maturity. 

6 {{{ NO FECES? }}}

Another remarkable thing to be pointed out regarding the babies’ foods inside of her brood pouch is that the content of the egg capsule is not the only foods they eat. They also eat a large amount of “jelly-like” substances almost identical to the component of the “egg capsules”. I personally witness several Hisser Mothers exposed a large amount of this substances after giving birth to babies. I also witnessed an unfertilized Mother Hisser gave birth to this gooey yellowish substances instead of babies. This substances seems shrink quickly when the moisture vaporizes but usually eaten by her cage mates gladly near her. I have not witnessed the Mother Hisser giving birth to babies and babies’ feces at the same time although they supposed to be kept inside of her same place – brood pouch. I conclude that the babies hatched inside of her did not produce the same kind of feces (solid black) while they are still inside of her. Just for the comparison, imagine how much feces would pile up inside of the mother’s womb when a human baby stay there for nine months! As I stated before, in comparison basis, Hisser babies stay inside of their mother for five and half years! 

7 {{{ DIGESTIVE BACTERIA }}}

Another thing need to be pointed out regarding the Hisser baby’s food inside of her is that “special digesting bacteria” that the Hisser Mother seems passing down to her babies. This is one of the reasons why big Hisser mothers produce babies that grow big when being given the same diet. What this means is some of the Hissers can effectively turns foods into body mass more than others by digesting and consuming the given nutrients better. I am not talking about a genetic character (gene) passing down from the parents to babies. This is a special bacterium living inside of its host insects. The reason I state this is based on my research of Japanese Kuwagata (stag beetle). 

In Japan, Kuwagata breeding is one of the most popular and expensive pet insect hobbies. Unlike in the western civilizations, Easterners bred insects as pets for many centuries. Today, there are several manufactures produce and market special foods for Kuwagata to grow dramatically large size. The product has been tried and tested by many enthusiastic breeders and professional breeders of Kuwagata and produced significant results, and reported in many Japanese websites. 

In Japan, they use a bottle of “Kinshi” (fungus of Kawaratake mushroom or Oohiratake mushroom) that grow on “Ogako” (finely grounded wooden chips) to make Kuwagata larvae grow extra large. Some people purchase “Kinsho” (fungus body itself) in large blocks, and place it into small bottles for each Kuwagata larvae. It takes about five years to grow Ookuwagata from an egg to an adult – Japanese insect hobbies are very patient unlike Americans here. (The Cultural Entomology could a very interesting subject matter to be studied for some of the pet insect lovers.) Based on their many years of breeding, they found that some larvae does not grow very well in Kinsho or Kinshi bottles. They declare that it is totally depends on whether the larva has the necessary “special bacteria” to digest the fungus or not. This bacterium is passed down from their mother to babies but it has nothing to do with genetic inheritance. They also found that growing the two generations of Kuwagata in the same fungus significantly increase the size of the adult. 

Please inform me the results if you have an experience of breeding Hissers with Kinshi or Kinsho stated above. 

In natural habitat in the rain forest (jangle) of Madagascar, Hissers eat decomposed leaves and dead animals. They do not eat dry dog feed, carrots or apples, naturally. I assume they eat mostly rotten and fungus infested organic matters. And I believe these organic matters contains special substance that enabled some kind of arthropods with special digestive bacteria to grow extra large --- Giant roaches (Hissers), Giant pill bugs (golf-ball size roly-poly), and over a foot long millipedes. 

8 {{{ HOW TO TREAT PREGNANT LADY HISSERS }}}

There are nothing special you have to do to take care of the pregnant Hissers or newly born Hisser babies if you are already breeding them in good conditions in daily bases. Following is a short review of good breeding tips. (See my other articles on breeding Hissers for more details.) 

The best breeding temperature for Hissers are 80F to 95F. Some professional breeders keep his Hisser tank consistently 88F all year long to produce as many Hissers as possible. Although this setting is not the exact replica of their homeland of the jangle of Madagascar, it appears that Hisser mothers love this hotter temperature more. They also love extremely high humidity, even over 90%, if you can control/suppress the mite infestation in their tank. Make their tank covered with black papers and place it in very quiet place. As always, it is not good idea to pick them up and play with them – they would easily stressed out. 

Give them finely ground dry dog/cat food enhanced calcium powder for daily diet. You may also give them dry Oak leaves as side dish. (See my other article on good diet for Hissers.) There are also well-balanced roach/cricket foods sold at pet stores, too. Do not give them only vegetables and fruits. Otherwise, they will get necessary protein by eating newly born babies and newly molted cage mates. Also make sure to set up “chick water” for them to drink clean water safely. 

Be very careful about certain kind of green vegetables bought from a grocery store – they could kill entire colony of small roaches within a day with pesticide on it. I have heard enough nightmare story on that in multiple websites. Also do not use cedar shaving for substrate because it contains toxic oil to kill your roaches. Use pine woods shavings instead if you wish. Make sure they have enough houses – rolled toilet paper cores – for them to “feel at home”. The more they are relaxed and satisfied, the more they produce babies. 

9 {{{ HOW OFTEN HISSERS CAN PRODUCE BABIES? }}}

Roaches, generally speaking, are a social animal and have complex social life. More over, roaches bred in a large group produce special hormone that encourage the rapid grow of each roach than solitary roach.  

It is reported that adult female Hissers could produce two to three oothecas a year when their captive environment is good. They are very prolific and produce about 25-45 babies. Adult female Hissers need adult male Hissers to produce babies unlike some of other tropical roaches that breed without any adult male. So, if you do not want them to produce any more babies, consider breeding male Hissers and female Hissers in separate tanks. 

10 {{{ IF YOU DO NOT WANT ANY BABIES }}}

I recommend not purchasing an adult female Hisser if you only want one Hisser and do not want her producing any babies. I have head many stories that a newly purchased Hisser started producing many babies immediately – people did not know she was already pregnant. For those people who just want to keep one Hisser as a pet, I recommend them to purchase only an adult male Hisser or a large nymph. Financially speaking, this is not a good shopping because average price of a Hisser is $1-$2 and shipment fee is about $6-$8 with priority shipment. It is better to buy a dozen of them from professional roach breeders (not science supply stores) to make unit price low. You could also ask them to ship you only an adult male Hissers so that they do not produce any babies. Adult Hissers live about two years so enjoy with no headaches of worry them multiplying like a rabbit ---- or roaches! 

11 {{{ STARTING IT OVER AGAIN }}}

The newly born baby Hissers will molt six times (some breeders report that the number of molt change due to their environment) and become adults and become sexually mature. It takes about five months after the birth mainly based on the conditions of temperature and foods of their captive environment. The adult Hisser could live about two years. Now, they are ready to pair/mate and produce babies. Life goes on. 

(January 26/27, February 6/7/8/12/13, 2002)

(© All the right reserved by Takeshi in 2002)