# cricket eggs?



## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

So I tossed in a cricket for my G. pulchripes last night, and while I was doing my morning check on my t's, I noticed him over his water dish. I took a quick look, and saw a clump of little white things along with some tiny baby crickets in the dish. Is it possible that the little white things were cricket eggs that the T was either expelling or had in a bolus?:


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## redrumpslump (May 7, 2011)

Possibly poop? Pics would help.

Matt


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## Hobo (May 7, 2011)

Their eggs will look more long and rod shaped.
I bet the clumps you saw was poop, as crickets will lay in the ground and the eggs in a prey item would most surely be eaten by the spider, and not left in a bolus.

End result is the same though, clean out that water dish!


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## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

I got worried at first and thought that they were nematodes, but they were tiny white cylinders mixed in with super tiny crickets. The substrate is dry, and they appeared 6 hours after I fed him a cricket. I am pretty sure it was from that cricket as there were also bits of it mixed in the water dish...


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## webbedone (May 7, 2011)

Spider poop my G.pulchra leaves same surprises behind


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## Bill S (May 7, 2011)

gmrpnk21 said:


> .... and they appeared 6 hours after I fed him a cricket. ...


Crickets lay eggs in the ground, and the eggs take several days to hatch, not 6 hours.  Where ever the baby crickets came from, it wasn't from the cricket you put in there 6 hours earlier.  My guess is that an earlier cricket deposited eggs in the cage, and the newly hatched babies were gathering near the only wet area in the cage.

Are you sure they are baby crickets?  Not Collembola?


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## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

Bill S said:


> Crickets lay eggs in the ground, and the eggs take several days to hatch, not 6 hours.  Where ever the baby crickets came from, it wasn't from the cricket you put in there 6 hours earlier.  My guess is that an earlier cricket deposited eggs in the cage, and the newly hatched babies were gathering near the only wet area in the cage.
> 
> Are you sure they are baby crickets?  Not Collembola?


Pretty sure! The white things looked like worms almost and the crickets looked like crickets (tiny and brown as well). Will eggs hatch inside a cricket if it has nowhere to lay them?


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## GriffinSmith (May 7, 2011)

Spring tails?


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## synyster (May 7, 2011)

As posted eariler by a member, pictures would be of great appreciation as this could help identify the intruders. There are hundred's of guesses that can be taken but no valid answer will be made until visual proof 

On another hand, I have had this experience in the past, where tiny crickets came out of the substrate in my T.blondi's tank. So this is not impossible but mostly improbable to find baby crickets in the enclosure...


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## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

Well I dug into the BONE DRY substrate a bit and found this lol


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## synyster (May 7, 2011)

confirmed cricket! Like i said, this has happened to me so it is possible. IMO you should clean out the tank just in case though...


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## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

What harm could a few babies do? I can't say it isn't a springtail because I haven't seen any in person...


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## RoseT (May 7, 2011)

yeah, that happened to me yesterday in my p irminia enclosure...No harm, but I still cant take having any other bug living in my T enclosures but the T's so I 
rehoused her.


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## gmrpnk21 (May 7, 2011)

Won't they die in the dry substrate or drown in the water dish?


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## Hobo (May 7, 2011)

Yep, that's a cricket alright!
Nope, they don't hatch inside the mother. My guess is that they were laid near the water dish some time ago, where the soil is more moist.

Either way, there is no need to clean out the enclosure. That's just overkill IMO. They will just die off on their own.


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## Londoner (May 7, 2011)

This really isn't uncommon and it's not usually a problem. They'll drown in the waterdish eventually. If you want to speed the process up, put in an extra dish and sink both dishes in the substrate so they're at ground-level. That way the baby crix should end up in the "drink" in no time... Worked for me.

Good luck.


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## gmrpnk21 (May 8, 2011)

If anyone would like to help me out on my other thread that would be awesome!


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## lancej (May 8, 2011)

Cleaned plastic soda bottle caps filled with water work great for drowning baby crickets.  That's usually what I do and it's very effective.  If you want to save them to raise or feed off to something else, just empty the cap every half hour or so into a coffee filter, put the filter in something secure and let it dry out.  You'd be surprised how many will "come back to life" once they dry out.  I wouldn't recommend leaving the little pin-heads in with the larger t though, because it can/will be very irritating to it.  I noticed my P. cambridgei kept "scratching" itself and pacing its cage constantly.  When I got a closer look to see what was going on, I noticed that there were baby crickets everywhere in its cage.


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## gmrpnk21 (May 9, 2011)

lol, I had that happen with a leopard gecko in dry reptisand! I couldn't believe the crickets were able to hatch in completely dry, warm sand, but there they were. I panic easily when it comes to my pets, so hopefully I can relax for awhile.


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## tarantulagirl10 (May 9, 2011)

I had the same thing happen to me once. I was using a tera cotta water dish which was porous so I assumed they layed the eggs right beside the dish. They didn't come from the cricket you just fed her a few hours before, but another cricket that has layed eggs in there probably a couple weeks ago. I solved that problem by feeding female crickets to my ts that I know will grab them before they hit the sub good. The ts that take their time eating get the males lol. Sounds cruel too, but I have cut the little tube off that they use to deposit the eggs if I didn't have males.

And what's worse, I try to breed crickets and get nothing. I put one cricket in a completely dry enclosure with a t and get pinheads everywhere..go figure.


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## gmrpnk21 (May 9, 2011)

Roflmao! I know what you mean. Life doesn't always work the way you plan it


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## SchmitisGal (Sep 11, 2011)

I'm so glad to read this thread, because as I was getting ready to work on some stuff in the office (where I keep my T) I looked over and noticed some little things crawling around his cage. I immediately did a search, (thinking they were mites... oh no!) and based on my research and the look at the bugs, they are indeed teeny tiny crickets in his cage. I have put in a crinkled wet papertowel with a piece of dog food and am hoping to get them suckers out of there. I hate the thought of anything irritating my sweet Schmidti! And I did research to see how you know the difference between a male and female cricket, and wouldn't you know it, it seems all of my crickets I buy from Petco are FEMALE! AAAGH!

I am usually pretty good about removing the crickets from my T's cage if he doesn't eat them within a few hours, but there have been one or two I left in overnight. DANG! That won't happen again. I am new to the T world (and I love it btw) but I don't like baby crickets in his cage with him. So, thank you thank you for this great thread and a "search" function on a forum that actually works!


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