Common Name: Headlight Cockroach
Scientific Name: Lucihormetica  subcincta

Status: Captive Bred

Sexing: Easy as adults (male has two yellow spots on 'head', hence their common name), not possible to sex nymphs.

Food : Cockroaches will eat a range of fruit, veg, cereals and kitchen scraps. I feed all my cockroaches on my dried  'cockroach mix' (muesli, cat biscuits, fish pellets and bran - mixed together), plus a little fruit and veg. I generally feed the cockroaches once or twice a week.

A very pretty cockroach species. Approximate adult size 4-5 cm.

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 these and many of my other cockroaches in plastic boxes (24 litre or 32 litre, opaque, purchased from Wilko or 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 or coir on the base and add leaf litter (Oak, Beech or other hardwoods) and pieces of bark to hide under. I am discovering more and more that many cockroaches will eat some leaf litter and seem to enjoy it, the Headlight cockroaches really seem to enjoy rotten wood and will often burrow into it. I feed them once or twice a week on my dried cockroach mix and pieces of fruit and vegetables. 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 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.

 Some cockroaches climb better than others, this species prefer to burrow so I provide them with a deeper substrate than most. Both sexes are wingless but  I would always house them with a lid on the box or tank as they can be very active at night and may climb up, especially the adults. Most cockroaches will not do well in stale, damp conditions as this encourages mould to grow.