Four-Spotted Jade Roach (Eustegasta buprestoides) for Sale

You rarely see this one for sale, and the reason is arithmetic: a female produces around a dozen young at a time, and they take the better part of a year to reach adult. Nobody builds stock quickly. Ours are captive-bred.

What arrives

A small blaberid with a lacquered look. Four gold spots sit symmetrically on the wing cases, two a side, over a green ground that shifts toward bronze under strong light. Nymphs are plain brown for months and the spots arrive at the final moult, so a young culture looks nothing like the photographs until it matures.

Adults run to roughly 12 to 15mm. A figure of 20 to 25mm circulates widely, ours included until today, and no source for it exists that we can find. The only measurement we can trace to anyone who has handled the animal is the smaller figure, so that is what we now print.

They fly, and they climb

This matters more than anything else on the page. Some sellers describe the species as flightless and unable to scale glass. Adults do both. Nymphs are the ones that stay low and burrow, and they are slight enough to slip through ventilation nobody would think twice about, so mesh every vent and keep the holes under about 2mm. A lid that seals, plus a barrier of petroleum jelly or a smooth plastic strip around the upper wall, is not optional for a mature colony. Do not undersize the ventilation to chase humidity, though: this family does better with airflow than with a stagnant box.

Keeping them

Twenty litres will hold a starter group comfortably. Lay down 10cm of substrate at minimum, pesticide-free coir, peat or loam as the bulk, crumbled hardwood folded in, litter across the surface and flat bark for cover. Keep the mix loose and chunky, not fine: coco chunks, mulch and orchid bark all help. Compaction is the documented killer of this species. It drives the air out, the lower layer sours, and nymphs cannot burrow. Run a hand through it during maintenance and refresh the chunky fraction whenever it starts packing down. Daylight hours are spent below ground and they surface after dark, though an established group feeds openly once it links the lid coming off with food.

Warmth drives everything. At 22C they tick over; at 26 to 28C development shortens and females produce more often. Hold moisture low in the substrate, let the top run drier, and move enough air that nothing turns. Mist; do not stand a water dish in there, which drowns nymphs and gains nothing. Heat from the side of the box if you heat at all.

Fruit, vegetable trimmings, and protein twice a week. Bug Burger works well, as does dried fish food. Set it on a shallow lid or a wide leaf, never bare substrate, and clear the remains before mould finds them.

One maintenance note that costs colonies: do not dig the box over. Nymphs develop under the surface and a careless rummage crushes them.

Be honest with yourself about the timeline

Females carry the young internally, and development to adult runs seven to eight months. A starter group will not resemble a colony for close to a year, and a culture left to pack down fails before it gets there. It is not the species to buy if you want a productive colony in a hurry. Three others sit alongside it in the metallic group: Emerald, Sapphire Flower and Giant Flower. All are patient projects.

Where the name comes from

Walker described it in 1868 from British Museum material, as Epilampra buprestoides. Princis moved it into Eustegasta, a genus Gerstaecker erected in 1883, in his 1963 catalogue. It sits in Blaberidae with no subfamily currently assigned. The epithet gets explained as a nod to jewel beetles, which may be right, but Walker never recorded why.

Recorded from

Collection records we can reach place it in Cameroon, and in the DRC. Gabon and Bioko appear in hobby write-ups including our own, with nothing behind them that we can find. The rest of the metallic roaches we keep are on the cockroach page.

Nymphs travel in a punched tub on damp moss inside a double-skinned carton, shipped between Monday and Thursday for delivery before lunchtime, so nothing we send stands waiting in a depot across a Sunday. The tub holds twenty per cent above your stated quantity, and we guarantee live arrival. Should anything be amiss, contact us inside a day of the parcel arriving and it gets resolved.