Back when I bred mine I used the most traditional method. Place the male a couple inches behind the female, as close as he'll let you without freaking out in the next step. Then I poke the female gently just to make her move slightly. I noticed that the males are actually very visually oriented (My theory is that males use pheromones to locate the females over long distance, but then visually find them!), anyway, he should point both his antennae towards her and wiggle them in excitement. His entire stance will noticeable change when he realizes there is a breedable female in front of him. After that the male will usually stalk and then jump on her, and connect within an hour or so. Connection lasts a good 10+ hours. I just leave both male and female free in a room, I've never had a male cannibalized when they can fly away and they usually eventually end up flying on my back when I walk in (I have no idea why
but that's how I re-collect my males about half the time). The females are pretty docile in my experience too, the only time I've ever had a D. lobata male grabbed was when he was acting pretty senile (It's possible the female realized he was no good for mating?).
I now use a different method where I skip the whole stalking process which can take hours, but I haven't tried it with D. lobata yet. My females are still subadult only (apart from the fertile adult female who is still laying
).
First pairing was around 5-6 weeks if I remember correctly, and she took her sweet time for her first ootheca so don't freak out when she doesn't lay for a long while. Mine literally look ready to blow up before she laid. Average hatch size was always 150+ for me and oothecas took forever to hatch (6-8 weeks?). Generally everything about this species seems to take absolutely forever. Their first molt took about 3-4 weeks as well!
