I was hoping some people could help me out and post some pics of the males and females dubia. My colony that I started with nymphs is starting to get bigger and I would like to start feeding off the males but I am not totally sure which ones they are
Its pretty easy, you just look under them at their butt. Females have a much larger last scale than the males. Also males grow wings (they don't fly just hoover) when they hit maturity, and females develop a very shiny exoskeleton with no wings when they hit maturity.
another thing to consider is they all look the same until their last molt i believe, males have full wings that cover their backs while females have stubby little wings - if they are adults they should be quite dark and shiny. if they still all look more or less the same then they may not have matured yet.
They are not mature yet then, I just want to start feeding some off but they dont have wings yet and I am not going to lift each one up so I am just going to start feeding some off in the meantime. I wasnt sure at which age they could be sexed.
Thank you everyone who responded
I’m pretty sure even the smallest nymphs can be sexed visually by the last scale underbelly thing, at least that is true of my discoids.
Here’s some pictures I took to show the difference.
This shows how in addition to the last extra scale that indicates males, if you look at the little devil horns or whatever the proper name is, on the females there is a noticeable space between the little horn thing and the first scale line. Here’s a female to illustrate this.
Here’s a small nymph that you can easily see is a male. The first scale line starts right there at the little horn thing, no space.
Comparison picture. Again, these are Discoids not Dubia, but should work the same for either.
You guys are amazing! I was going to start picking out my bigger dubia to start my breeder colony this long holiday weekend, the was just to put the biggest ones in a seperate container...but now, I can actually do this properly! It is like you read my mind! Thanks!!
This is a great topic. I was actually wondering this myself the other day. Since all the dubia look the same until the last molt I was uncertain whether or not I had any males in my small colony. Now I can actually sex them.
You can also sex them visually from the top when they are about 1" and larger. Males begin to grow their little immature wing things out a bit in preparation for adulthood. So the males have like mini wings and the females do not. In the stage just before the last molt, the mini wings on the male nymphs are larger than the wingstubs on the adult females.
This scale thing is way better then having to wait for wings! I was hoping to get the breeders started on the high protein foods and have plenty of little ones to feed off. I got 1000 small nymphs, about a month or so ago and they are growing like weedsI should have plenty that are big enough to sex without too much trouble!
lol.......my fiance is laughing at me for trying to sex my dubia roaches on one hand, and then on the other I am trying to kill the german roaches that we have found, talk about twisted.....lol
very interesting and the pics do help a lot but..... as for myself, i'll just stick with the wing id methoid. i don't think that i can hold on to them long enough to look under their butt!!
