Common Name: Butterfly Cockroach
Scientific Name: Gyna centurio

Status: Captive Bred / New species 2024

Food : Cockroaches will eat a range of fruit, veg, cereals and kitchen scraps. 

Note : A tub of cockroaches will always contain enough individuals to start a breeding colony. The number in a tub varies depending on size of species, stage of lifecycle and how many I have in stock. (minimum 12, when I am over-run with a certain species, a tub will contain as many as I can fit in!)

How I keep mine

I keep my Butterfly cockroaches in plastic boxes (24 litre or 32 litre, opaque, purchased from Tesco).  I make air holes in the lid with my little soldering iron, great for burning the right size holes through plastic. I use peat, coir or vermiculite on the base and add leaf litter (Oak, Beech or other hardwoods) and pieces of bark or egg trays to hide under. I am discovering more and more that many cockroaches will eat some leaf litter and seem to enjoy it but it isn't strictly necessary as I kept cockroaches successfully for many years without giving them any leaves. I feed them once or twice a week. I find banana and cucumber are favourites.

I place my boxes on a shelf with a heat mat on it, I use a strip heat mat (15cm wide) and this covers part of the base of the box (several boxes can fit on one long mat). Like most bugs it is a good idea to give them a dry and a damp area to choose from. I find the area above the heat mat is dry and the area not covered by the heat mat is a little more moist.  I use plastic boxes for my cockroaches as I have lots of species and don't have the space to keep them all in individual tanks but of course they do equally well when housed in a plastic or glass tank and are much more visible.

I find both sexes of the Butterfly cockroach can run fast and climb well, the males also like to fly so take care when you open the lid!