The Madagascan Giant
Hissing Cockroach

Gromphadorhina portentosa is a great elementary school pet or traveling exhibit for the classroom.

Kids are very impressed with the size while its slow movements and inability to fly reassure the more nervous sorts (teachers included).

This page has been created to share my experiences with raising and handling these cockroaches...
...with the hope other people who might use them to introduce children to insects...and show them how wonderful they are!
CARE & USE
of roaches
TESTIMONIALS
from teachers
Cockroaches in Literature
suggestions from teachers

July 2007 - The raccoons ate my colony last summer. I made the mistake of leaving the aquarium on the porch. I bought 3 new roaches at the start of the school year and kept them in school, but I find they don't breed when in school. They need more TLC when it comes to temperature and varied foods.

Now that it summer break they live in a Glad storage container with punched holes in the lid. One paper towel scrunched as bedding. Keeping them near where I prepare salads helps me to remember to toss them tidbits!

Past tanks:

(Oct.2002) I have put the 'roaches in a large hexagonal fish tank I found at the dump. While it has one panel cracked it is solid enough to use for a terrestrial tank. I don't know if it will turn out to be a good idea or not but I am using a gardening grade milled peatmoss for a bedding material, topped with oak leaves and partially decomposed leaf litter. In this I placed a handful of common millipedes. A stump in the tank is a favorite "sunning" place for the cockroaches as they try to get closer to the lightbulb extended down through the cover.

You can see the art room through the glass.

The photo above to the left shows a NY Times illustration about leaf litter ecology which is mounted behind the tank.

Small upside down baskets offer shelter to more timid insects

FORMER SET UP: These guys lived in the art room. They lived in ceramic "tubes".

Actually, one tube is really a ceramic castle knocked onto its side. The insects used it when it was upright but like it better this way.

Oak leaves are nice, too, and the cockroaches sometimes eat them right up! Other times they ignore them.


Question: Do your hissers ever get broken antenna? If they do, have you noticed if it is males or females?...old or young....dominant or not? Jenn S., who works at a small zoo, has looked at different populations and found that males, especially older ones, seem to be likely to have broken antennae. I have the same impression. I have not seen one break but jousting matches do seem a likely way to have one broken...or perhaps bitten off?

art room tank

Good links:
  • This page (that I forget who created it...sorry) is a must see and it has great links...like a Live 'Roach Cam.

  • The Pet Arthropod Page of Scott Bullington is where you want to go for the detail about these animals. Great photos and information. Go here to look for more detailed answers to your questions.

  • Information about the mite that lives on the hissing cockroach and help keep it free of parasites!

Related stuff:

  • Kid art: leaf rubbings turned into insects and why insects are super art subjects

OA common question I get is "Where can I buy them?.

My stock answer, since sources do come and go, is simply use a top quality search engine like Google (http://www.google. com)

Phrase your search to include the important ideas.
For example, "for sale Madagascan hissing cockroaches" would be a search phrase I would use first.

Think of what phrases would exist on a web page you are looking for, and start variations on those phrases.

Carolina Biological always used to have them, too. And Wards in Rochester. These places take POs from schools. Big ones ready to breed used to be 8$, or a handful of little guys about that. And see paragraph below for Ryan's Cockroach Page as he used to link to sellers.

I will still give them free to any CT teacher or science museum that wants them . However, you must come to my school and pick them up.

(2007 - Currently this offer is not possible as I do not have any extras.)

CARE & USE
of roaches

The following is a list of possibly useful things to know:

Raising these cockroaches:

    • they don't breed as freely as you might fear, or want, depending on your point of view. I was told by a local nature center person that 2 or 3 broods a year is good and that seems to be what my bunch cranks out.

    • The other day I became tired of the aspen shaving aesthetic of my cockroach tank. I gathered some of last fall's oak leaves to pile in there as a place for them to hide, instead of using the tinted vitamin bottles that they love to jam into but you can't see them in there. Now they cling to oak leaves or hug the tank's glass wall where a leaf leans against it. This makes for much better observations. The cochroaches do munch on the dry leaves (it sounds like Tostitos) but none seem worse for wear because of it.

    • they grow from the 3/8" size (when I usually see them) quickly enough to be useful as a classroom observation project; they are almost as big as the parents in a few months; great graphing project for fourth grade science

    • Note: most articles say they don't have an odor. I think they certainly do, although much less than a mouse cage. It reminds me of the vegetable decay smell you get off lettuce when it goes slimey in the frig...(if you know what I'm talking about.) Not necessarily bad...but distinctive.
      I never notice it walking by the aquarium, only when I have my nose over the edge being snoopy. I have put a piece of cardboard over the top occasionally to contain smell when sensitive nosed little kids will be closely examining the cage. This smell is there even with a real tidy and clean cage if you have a bigger colony. It does get intense if you let it go a few months (you know how it is...cleaning the 'roach tank is not on the top of my list!) Laurie D. writes that she notices it, too, "when I have my nose hanging over the tank.".

    • when they are young they have the tendency to climb upwards on the aquarium wall and wedge their little flat bodies into the cover cracks, so if your cover lifts off expect to have to brush a few roaches back into the tank so they don't get squashed when you reseat the cover; (I realize I may be having larger broods than I thought since they could be abandoning ship when I'm not looking)
      Two roach wranglers have been kind enough to write and tell me to smear a band of petroleum jelly around tank top to discourage and foil this behavior! (This works great...phew!)
      It is also rather funny to watch the adults with greasy feet slowly slide down the side. I don't think a top is necessary with a good vaseline band, except to keep out curious hands. Mu husband finds the top reassuring anyway.

    • they like it warm; place a roach tank on a cable TV box to keep it around 80 degrees and put their "cave" at the spot of maximum warmth. This temperature is needed if you want to breed them. While they will live at cooler temperatures (complaining ,I'm sure!) they will be slowed down the cooler it gets.
      A a slow roach might be wanted for display or handling reasons, not that they are very zippy at best of temperatures once they reach adult size. The top of a frig that exhausts upwards is a good warm place, too; I keep 4 buckets up there and they reproducevery well. As an idea, how about one of those seed starting heating mats? They're made to be placed under trays and they might be just the thing.

    • while the literature and many other roach raisers have always mentioned apples and bananas as food with dog food pellets and water on the side, I find my roaches really greatly prefer oranges and leafy greens (lettuce, beet greens) to those. I also supply Purina lab chow and water in a sponge. I usually give organic fresh veg, with zuchinni skin is the current favorite food during the summer. Black birch leaves (wintergreen smell) were avidly consumed by 3 of my 4 colonies (go figure...).
      IMPORTANT!: Don't forget to put some dry dog kibble or lab chow in there. They need occasional protein, which, if they cannot find it makes them munch on a newly molted colleague! This info was supplied by a helpful, and thoroughly grossed out, roach wrangler who hadn't known to give kibble. Another raiser emailed me that moistened "monkey biscuit" (available at pet stores) works well.

    • when they shed their "skin" they usually eat it, but sometimes they don't so you can eventually accumulate a cool teaching aid by mounting the empty but amazingly lifelike exoskeletons in a display illustrating instars. Another really cool thing is that they are ivory colored for a few hours after shedding which makes them look like netsuke!

Classroom use:

    • as an art teacher I find the cockroaches very motivating models for a variety of lessons; drawing from nature, symmetrical paper cutting, observation practice...
    • even first graders think girls should be afraid of bugs more often than boys; I do not allow any mock shrieks or ughs (grimaces are allowed but not encouraged); by explaining how I find the insects beautiful, pointing out the exquisite engineering of the leg, the color of the exoskeleton, the fine fuzz on the antenna and so forth; most kids are sucked into a close viewing out of curiosity or a need to be as cool about it as their peers
    • like every 7th pet cockroach owner, I named my original pair Archy and Mehitabel after very cool books from the late 20's and 30's by Don Marquis. Archy was cockroach and Mehitabel a lady cat who had been around the block a few times; Archy was in love with her (while she was having none of it); they were friends though; by cleaning up a few of the stories and poems and retelling them to the kids I got the kids very involved in the story of how Archy came to learn to type, and therefore be able to write the books...the children were quiet and patient as I toured the classroom with the cockroach in my hand during the first "Meet the Roaches" lesson (some kids tend to believe the story which is an interesting situation)
    • set clear rules for viewing the insects the first time so nervous children do not feel threatened; I tell everyone exactly what I will do...go to each table of four children, hold my hand with Archy on it in the middle, the kids can then get as close as they want; I illustrate how close they can get by putting Archy against my nose, and I say if they feel the need they can even back away from their seat if done quietly and slowly to spare Archy's feelings
    • consider having a Rent-A-Roach program so kids can take home a small cage over the weekend; Roach Raffles could raise money for the school!
      (
      Reality check: Not likely...adults are more resistant to having cockroaches around than I could have imagined! I have seen more grimaces on grown-up faces this last year...There have been several teachers who have adopted classroom pairs, however. And my students will grow up more tolerant I hope.)
    • Having a tank of the cockroaches in an art room gets kids used to them as pets...after a few months they start wanting a couple in their classroom. A batch of baby roaches gets everyone interested. The fact they live together peacefully also makes an impression on children ,who seem to think most insects live a very 'bug eat bug" sort of life!. Baby cockroaches often elicit the "ahh...aren't they cute" response (I know that sounds odd, but children often have great empathy for the young of any specie).

TESTIMONIALS
from teachers

> Really interesting e-mail from Pauline Corzilius, Woodsville High School, Woodsvillle, NH

Hi - I, too, have become a "roach wrangler"! Our school started with 3
females and 3 males 4 years ago; currently I have around 100, so I
guess that qualifies me as a successful breeder. I have a few
suggestions to add that may be of help to others.

We use dog kibble as our basic food, but we grind it up in a blender first so the littlest
guys can eat it more easily. They can survive on kibble alone, but if
you wish to breed them you need to give a good source of carbohydrates
too; though they will eat slices of sweet fruits such as bananas,
apples, and oranges, my bugs' absolute favorite is a slice of raw
pumpkin or squash. If your water is offered in plates - I use petri
dishes, as I have had a couple of disasters trying to use a gerbil-type
water bottle - it's a good idea to put a piece of sponge in the dish so
the babies don't drown. Sometimes they munch on the sponge, but it
hasn't done any harm. Also, if you want to breed, it needs to be warm
in there 24/7! Our school turns the heat down on weekends, so I have
to monitor the roach case carefully. We use a big plexi aquarium donated
by a parent, and I have a regular drugstore-purchased hotpad set on high
attached to the back of the aquarium with duct tape. I set it up so the
pad is at one end of the case, providing a gradient of temperature in
the habitat. It's funny - on Monday mornings they'll all be piled up at
that end of the case.

As to your question about broken antennae, the teacher I got my
original bugs from had set up a video camera on his bugs overnight, and he said
that they fight at night; the males butt heads like goats to establish
dominance. Some antennae may be broken in this process, but apparently
more often the dominant males will bite off the lesser males' antennae
when they get the chance. Antennae are pheromone receptors; if you
can't smell when a female is in breeding condition, you don't get a chance to
breed her. And since females only breed once regardless of the number
of litters they have, the stakes are high for the males, particularly as
the population density rises.

My biology students' favorite lab is the "roach pull" in which they
must weigh an adult cockroach, then harness it with thread (if they hurt the
roach they get an automatic zero on the lab...so far, so good!) and get
the roach to drag a small container into which they drop pennies one at
a time until the roach can't pull it anymore. Then they weigh the
container and the pennies and calculate how many times its own body
weight the roach can pull. They then weigh themselves and apply the
same calculation, leading to the conclusion that if you were as strong as an
cockroach, you could drag thousands of pounds around. It's a great
kickoff for a unit on insects, or to teach about scale factors.

One final thought - roach keepers should make an effort to educate the
janitorial staff about their bugs BEFORE something untoward happens! An
ounce of prevention...


E-mail from Jan Stein Carter, Asst. Prof. of Biology, Univ. of Cincinnati - Clermont College

....Another good protein source they like and is good for them is Tetramin brand flake fish food. I've found that they much prefer Tetramin to dog chow. You might try kale, rather than iceberg lettuce, for more vitamins (better for people to eat, too). Besides carrots and oranges, another nutritious and well-liked food is raw sweet potato (yam?).

There are a couple methods I've seen used to provide water. If you can obtain dental wicks (those white, absorbent snake-shaped things the dentist crams in between your jaws and cheeks when working on your teeth), one of those stuck through a hole in the lid/rubber stopper of a container full of water works nicely. Alternatively, a test tube full of water blocked with a wad of damp cotton will do the same thing. If the cotton wad is sized right, you can lay the test tube on its side in the aquarium without any of the water leaking out. I have found that often, as the water is consumed, the cotton tends to slide down into the tube, so having a pair of forceps handy to remove it (so the water can be refilled) is a good idea. Watch out for "babies" hiding down in there.

One thing I've seen used as "bedding" is pieces of cardboard egg carton with no shavings, etc. in the bottom of the tank. That way, when it's cleaning time, the cartons, with most of the roaches on them, can be lifted out and the droppings (frass), shed skins, dead roaches, etc. removed from the bottom more easily (watch out for "babies" mixed in). They do tend to nibble on the cartons, so eventually those need to be replaced, and because of the roaches' tendency to munch on things, I would be leery of trying styrofoam egg cartons.


Miss Borders' 3rd grade class from Poasttown Elementary School in Middletown, Ohio reported:

We have 3 male hissing cockroaches in our third grade classroom. The kids just love them! The best reward for a hard day's work is getting to hold a cockroach! Together we voted on names for our out-of-the-ordinary class pets and decided on Star, Airbag, and Godzilla (who is a little over 3 inches long!).
On the first day of school the kids were a little hesitant about the cockroaches, but now my third graders bring their friends into our classroom just to show them off!

Having the cockroaches as part of our class has taught my students so much about the world around us and how important even the small things are.
Feb. 2000


Thomas E.J. Conte, third grade teacher from Chippewa Local Schools in Doylestown, Ohio invites you to visit his classroom's website (sorry-defunct) where you can find out more about the cockroaches and other animals the children care for.

Dec.1999: "My third graders are raising an orphaned bunch of Hissing Cockroaches which have been nick named "the Kubwas" after their deceased mother "Kubwa Madudu".

The pet store assured me their mother was not "pregnant"; three weeks later we realized the error of his statement. The mother died soon after and 20 little guys remained.

They currently live in a ten gallon aquarium but will soon be separated boys from girls into two separate 10 gal aquariums. We will be assigning each roach to a keeper that will be responsible for the little guys over spring break!"


BIG news from Mrs. Drobney's classroom in Connecticut. (I gave Mrs. D a bucket of cockroaches this month as her friends at the Lutz Children's Museum in Manchester had convinced her they were totally cool. Educators within driving distance who want to pick up some livestock should contact me at the email address below.)

"Our first cockroach molted this afternoon. Of course my kids were with my teammate for social studies, so I put the roach and old body container into a petri dish and took it to them. They were SOOO excited. The other teacher, who had been fairly resistant to the new neighbors next door, was totally into the process. I think I may have won her over to "our side"! It is so cool that even the antennae are white!" Dec. 1999


Sandy S. of the Meriden Public Library, Meriden, Ct. writes:

We have recieved two male madagascar hissing roaches from our local Girls Inc. which has a Science program there. We are a local public library and have taken on these critters in the Children's room for all who visit. We find both adults and children alike are very interested in these guys. I am the only one who will give them water of feed them & it's amazing how they respond when I pick up the cage to put in more water or food. They really start moving around & get excited. I am really enjoying our new pets.


Teacher Lee Ann A. of Olathe District Schools, Olathe, Kansas writes: I am a third grade teacher with the Olathe school district. Our first science unit of the year is insects. We successfully raised Monarch and Swallowtail butterflies from caterpillars. I took in the cockroaches and the kids went wild. They thought they were great. I also read them the book "Shoebag" about a cockroach turned boy. They loved it. The roaches are in a plastic aquarium in front of a window which overlooks the entryway.Every day both AM and PM I have noses pressed up against the glass looking at our cockroaches. They are a hit!!


Mrs. Tracy Trimpe of Havana Junior High, Havana, Illinois invites you to visit her Science Spot web site which includes a hisser section. She writes "My 7th grade science students created a roach maze out of plywood and 2x4's. The maze was designed so that they can change the layout by moving a few inside boards. The students are still collecting data and trying to limit variables. We are trying to decide if they learn the maze (and remember it) or if they just get more comfortable with the material and increase their speed. Sparky holds the speed record to date - 1 min, 18 seconds. Gerdie, our large female, holds the record for cheating - she usually climbs over the top to get to the end - lettuce leaves." Check it out for their conclusions.


Teacher Andrea A. wrote: I have one male Madagascan Hissing Roach (Arthur) in my kindergarten classroom, which I got from my old High School last year.


Teacher Daniel S. writes: I teach sixth grade at Five Oaks MiddleSchool in Beaverton, Oregon, and got a pair of roaches in about March or April of this year. (He went on to mention that his roaches, both female, had given birth to a lot of babies....so if you don't want to raise roaches, buy only males as the females may already be fertilized. Luckily he had a rose-haired tarantula who, I believe, was going to benefit from all the new livestock!)


Teacher K. C. S. of Modesto, CA writes: I am a new traveling teacher for the Great Valley Museum in Modesto,CA. I will be teaching a traveling insect program so am busy gathering info.We have a colony of Hissing Cockroaches; your site has helped a lot! Thank you so much!


Connie M. of Southwest Elementary School, 3rd grade ,Pratt, Kansas writes:
We currently house appx. 20 hissing roaches. We have successfully bred and reared many! The egg sac that one class talked about is empty. Our females then eat their empty sacs. Put a heat lamp on the cage for a few days and wait and watch. (They also asked for experiment ideas....if you have any, send them to me and I will pass them on.)


> Ryan's Cockroach Page....this is a established years ago by a then middle school student who is a very successful cockroach breeder. Good overview of cockroach family , as well as tips on keeping. New pictures are listed (really nice one of the young) and, when I was there, a link to a seller that had interesting stuff like a recording so you can hear the hiss!


Teacher Laura S. writes: I teach second grade social studies, science and health to 100 students daily. We have 6 roaches that the students love....


Cockroaches in Literature:

Sandy S. of the Meriden Public Library, Meriden, Ct. writes:

Forgot to tell you about another book called "La Cucaracha Martina" by Daniel Moreton. This is a Cuban tale told to him by his grandmother. There is a Puerto Rican folk-tale by Pura Belpre' by the name of "Perez and Martina". We have this story in English and in Spanish. We use this story at our annual Puerto Rican festival when we do story-telling.

Go to Amazon.com for this page of MANY children's books with a cockroach theme!!! There are more every time I look.

Thanks for visiting :-)

Want to contribute to this page with your experience in the classroom?

Have any questions that a serious Google search won't answer?

E-mail me at b47ecrai@ci.manchester.ct.us