Dovey
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
- Messages
- 541
This is sort of an odd posting, but I've never cared for a geniculata before and don't know if this is normal or not. I just took this genic into my care the day before yesterday, and since yesterday was feeding day, I thought "what the heck" and offered her a dubia.
Here's the weird part. This morning when I opened up the bin to check on her, she had opened that dubia up like an oyster and sucked all the juice out of the middle, leaving two intact half exoskeletons...perfect exoskeletons, like she'd opened the thing up with a can opener or snipped it in half with a pair of scissors! I lifted out the pieces, obviously, and marvelled.
But tonight, I noticed that there was movement in the soil and took a closer look. To my astonishment, I actually saw little gnats and their horrible tiny maggots! I poked through the soil and found lots of parts of old feeder insects that obviously have been attracting these little carrion-eaters. Either they've been in there for a while, or when the water dish splashed around in the car, it created too tasty a feeding ground and gnats from somewhere in my house found their way into the bin [insert shudder here].
There aren't enough of them to present a clear and present danger of any sort, but I suppose the lesson here is don't moisten other people's substrate. The previous owner clearly was not big on removing leftover parts.
So here's my question: are geniculatas typically this violent and strange in their eating habits, or do I just have a little Hannibal Lecter on my hands who really gets into evisceration and dismemberment? Cause let me tell you, there were body parts buried everywhere!
Pretty disgusting. I'll be moving her into a new home with fresh substrate tomorrow. And the nasty gnats are being expelled to the garden compost heap--along with all of the substrate that came from the previous home. Bleh!
Here's the weird part. This morning when I opened up the bin to check on her, she had opened that dubia up like an oyster and sucked all the juice out of the middle, leaving two intact half exoskeletons...perfect exoskeletons, like she'd opened the thing up with a can opener or snipped it in half with a pair of scissors! I lifted out the pieces, obviously, and marvelled.
But tonight, I noticed that there was movement in the soil and took a closer look. To my astonishment, I actually saw little gnats and their horrible tiny maggots! I poked through the soil and found lots of parts of old feeder insects that obviously have been attracting these little carrion-eaters. Either they've been in there for a while, or when the water dish splashed around in the car, it created too tasty a feeding ground and gnats from somewhere in my house found their way into the bin [insert shudder here].
There aren't enough of them to present a clear and present danger of any sort, but I suppose the lesson here is don't moisten other people's substrate. The previous owner clearly was not big on removing leftover parts.
So here's my question: are geniculatas typically this violent and strange in their eating habits, or do I just have a little Hannibal Lecter on my hands who really gets into evisceration and dismemberment? Cause let me tell you, there were body parts buried everywhere!
Pretty disgusting. I'll be moving her into a new home with fresh substrate tomorrow. And the nasty gnats are being expelled to the garden compost heap--along with all of the substrate that came from the previous home. Bleh!
