Panesthia angustipennis cognata “Laos”
Starter colony (12 mixed nymphs): $150
All Panesthia orders come with a free quart of white-rot wood, though additional shipping costs may be incurred for some orders.
Detailed Species Stats -Click-
Roach Crossing’s early days were spent fawning over species only a select few had in the United States. Among those were Panesthia, whose tanky, fat-bottomed nymphs and durable but worn adults drew much conversation on the forum threads. Panesthia angustipennis cognata has always been a coveted subspecies with its cheekily bi-colored nymphs, though unfortunately adults lose this coloration and are nearly solid black with slivers of remnant orange. Panesthia never gained a footing in the United States culture… until now! There is nothing terribly difficult about raising Panesthia, the key seems to be providing quality white-rotted wood ad libitum. Keepers have reported feeding on a number of traditional roach cuisines, but Roach Crossing’s colony is fed exclusively properly rotted wood. While more of an intermediate difficulty species, these have been listed as advanced due to the sheer volume and consistency of quality wood required. Once an enclosure is prepared, there is not much work to be done and it can take a year or more for the colony to exhaust all of the material. Waiting for nymphs to pop up is a bit of a slog, as litters are not very large but typically have no casualties. Much like Macropanesthia, these are relatively k-selected roaches, although females will produce multiple litters a year. In accordance with this biology, adults are long-lived and some may thrive for up to half a decade. Females get along well and there is some degree of parental care (though not as developed as in Macropanesthia), but males can be antagonistic. Fortunately the space required to house a colony considering this is not much, and a hundred or so mixed sizes do well in a volume of roughly 5 gallons. In contrast to other burrowing roaches, Panesthia are fairly active and adults often come to the surface or tunnel against the enclosure side.