As everyone in NU already knows, slugroaches have been slowly disappearing for the past few months. As recently as a few weeks ago there were 4 (2 males & 2 females) still spawning at the far west end of the west corn field and 1 female in the east corn field. Two weeks ago the 4 in the west stopped respawning and yesterday the 1 in the east did also stopped spawning.
What happened yesterday, though, is worth detailing, as it may offer a clue to the problem of the disappearing spawn.
It started when I found the lone female in the east field and attacked with my pugio and then started shifting back and forth between healing and attacking like normal in order to grind out avoids and other melee + healing skills. After a very short time another female spawned right next to us (me and the bug I was fighting). Within a minute or 2 another spawned, and then another, and then another, and then another (5 total). I was attacked by one of the new bugs that spawned too close and killed the first. It may not have respawned because the total number of bugs seemed to settle at 4. A society mate (Catalist) happened by at that time and engaged one of the other bugs. I later had to kill another bug but it did respawn and the total number held 4. Catalist and I continued to grind skills for a while and then I crashed (client locked up). When I logged back in all the bugs were gone and Catalist told me they all went poof when I crashed. Both Catalist and I have been checking the east field regularly for the past ~24 hours and no more bugs have spawned. They seem to have gone the way of the Dodo, never to be seen alive again in the world.
