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why not giant mealworms

T

turtlebuyer

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I bought a bunch of giant meal worms the other day to start a colony but when I looked on a mealworm website it said do not feed these to your pets. can anyone tell me why
 
Giant mealworms have been injected with growth hormones. This stops them from morphing into a pupae and lets them grow larger. If you want something larger than a regular mealworm try superworms.
 
jeez! never knew that. and what kind of leo effects come from the hormones? i've feeding large mealies for awhile. and what of the rumor about supers burrowing through your leo if the head is not crushed?
 
As far as what effects it has to the leos I’m not real sure. I’ve never let it go that far and I don’t know anyone who has. The growth hormone may effect the size of the leo or stunt its growth.

The rumor of the superworms eating there way out of the animal is just that a rumor. You don’t have to crush the heads as the geckos usually do that. They are perfectly fine to feed and are being used more and more.
 
OK, maybe thats why most of my gex are on the small side? they dont usually crush the head of mealies, so I was concerned about the supers. will my mealies not pupate if left under light all the time?
 
no, I'm confident they are in fact Giant mealies. I keep them in the fridge! I have seen supers before, and they have like a darker brown stripe in the front, right? these are uniform camel color and do pupate to aliens
 
If you watch most lizards eat bugs-whether it be crickets or supers- you will see that they really do chew the hell out of them and then after that I can't see how anything would survive in the gastric juices of any animals digestive system.
This is a myth that has been going round the herp trade for many many years.
I really didn't know about the hormone treated giant meal worms-
I have been using plain old supers for years with all my lizards for many years.
Some of my Leos really love them and some won't touch them.
On the other hand my Beardies go nuts over them and my Blue Tongue likes them also.
Sandy
 
The giant mealworms are treated with juvenile hormone (JH) which is already present in regular mealworms. When the larvae stop producing JH, they pupate. So what mealworm farmers do is expose mealworms to JH to cause them to molt into an extra larval stage.

Unless the mealworm farmers add some other chemicals to their formula, giant mealworms should be an okay source of food. JH by itself won't harm your leo (evident by the fact that your leo is already consuming JH by eating regular mealworms). It's a hormone that only affects bugs. Some plants have even evolved a defense mechanism in which they emit a JH mimic which stunts their surrounding bug population. How people even discovered JH was from an unrelated experiment that went wrong because the caterpillars emerged from their coccoons as giant larvae and then died. The biologists couldn't figure out why this kept on happening until finally they realized it was from the paper towel substrtate, which was made of some type of aspen (if I'm remembering correctly) that emits a pseudo-JH. Since then, entomologists have done surgical experiments such as joining two bugs of different instars with little tubes. So the younger bug would prevent the older one from pupating into an adult because its JH transferred through the little tube.

Before reptiles, my first love was bugs, so I am all over this stuff. :)
 
xelda, that's great! I was so worried for a bit. Thank you! can i send you all my "what is this cool bug I found?" pictures in the spring? I've had a heck of a time finding people and resources that are truly complete. and maybe recommend a non-climbing roach?
 
geckogrl6 said:
and maybe recommend a non-climbing roach?
Click to expand...
Good non-climbers:
Discoid (Blaberus discoidales)
Orange head (Eublaberus prosticus)
Orange spot (Blaptica dubia)
Six spot (Eublaberus distanti)
Death head (Blaberus craniifer)

I have the first two and they are excellent non-climbing feeders.
 
geckogrl: You should try directing your invertebrate questions to the arachnoboards.com forums. :) But sure, if you need any IDing, I'd be glad to (try) to help. Regarding the non-climbing roaches, Cody pretty much listed the most common ones used for feeders. I wouldn't use distanti to feed leos though since they're larger than the other species.
 
Xelda said:
I wouldn't use distanti to feed leos though since they're larger than the other species.
Click to expand...
You can use them but just use the nymphs. They’re basically the same as the orange heads but with a different body structure and color. The roach to avoid is the hisser. They have a very hard exoskeleton.
 
But distanti nymphs are much stockier than discoid, orange head, and dubia nymphs. They make better feeders for larger herps, not leos.
 
Giant Mealies

Bill from American Cricket and I talked about the Giant Mealworms and the site that was mentioned at the beginning of this thread about not using the giants. He basically said there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the giants and there isn't a chance that the giants would have adverse affects on what eats them.
 
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