# strange yellow worms



## Ed_z115 (Feb 9, 2008)

hi everyone, im posting about a concern iv recently run into, one of my tarantula containers had gotten some new inhabitants, some weird little yellow worms, i could often see then crawling through the soil, i changed the soil and they seem to be gone now, my T hasnt eaten in about 2 months and although i know they normally dont eat for awhile im worried the worms might have been the cause, they were about a tenth the size of a grain of rice but still very visable in dark soil, if anyone has any idea what they might be and if they are harmful please offer any info you have, thanks!


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## Stylopidae (Feb 9, 2008)

Sounds like mealworms.


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## d0zz (Feb 9, 2008)

Maybe not mealworms?
I raise MW`s and at that size they aren`t yellowish yet...


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## Kevmaster06 (Feb 9, 2008)

what kind of T is it. As far as G. Rosea go sometimes they dont eat for months!


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## Arborealis (Feb 10, 2008)

Kevmaster06 said:


> what kind of T is it. As far as G. Rosea go sometimes they dont eat for months!


this wasn't the question. He was asking about the worms not the lack of appetite.


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## d0zz (Feb 10, 2008)

Do they look something like this?

Also, did you put any beetles at any time in the terrarium?

Do you feed your T mealworms?

I doubt it would be mealies because of their size and all, but who knows?


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## NevularScorpion (Feb 10, 2008)

cricket larve  im 100% sure


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## Leetplayer (Feb 10, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> cricket larve  im 100% sure


:? :? 
maybe its maggots?


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## Hedorah99 (Feb 10, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> cricket larve  im 100% sure


Just curious, how are you 100% sure on this one? :? 

To the OP, maybe maggots, maybe nematodes, maybe meal worms. Can you get a picture? Where did the soil come from? What have you been feeding it?


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## UrbanJungles (Feb 10, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> cricket larve  im 100% sure


Cricket larvae (sic) look like, well crickets....not worms.


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## AzJohn (Feb 10, 2008)

Skuttle fly magots? I don't know the spieces name.


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## Stylopidae (Feb 10, 2008)

Crickets go through incomplete metamorphoses...their young are known as nymphs.


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## Cocoa-Jin (Feb 11, 2008)

If you missed some left over feeder remains or something its possible its fly larvae...maggots.

Depending on the type of fly you may not have anything to worry about.  They'll mature and fly away, or die...or both 

But as a precaution its best to change the substrate and dry it out.  You'll be surprised how quick flies find meals.

I have bonsai trees that I fertilize with blood meal every March.  If I do it too late in the season or when its especially warm my pots stink to high heaven and the soil boils with fly larvae.  If I do it when its still cold and soggy I get no problems.  I bet a warm and moist cricket part would be ClubMed for any fly.


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## PhilK (Feb 11, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> cricket larve  im 100% sure


You'd be 100% right except for the fact that at no stage in a crickets' life does it look ANYTHING like a worm... They hatch out as tiny miniatures of their parents.

I reckon it could be nematodes?


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## NevularScorpion (Feb 11, 2008)

hmm i will take a pic of a criket larve but im pretty sure that cricket have larve form because i used to breed them and i seen small yellowish tiny worms before i seen some small pin heads.


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## Stylopidae (Feb 11, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> hmm i will take a pic of a criket larve but im pretty sure that cricket have larve form because i used to breed them and i seen small yellowish tiny worms before i seen some small pin heads.


When you consider the fact _A. domestica_ is used by biology (and entomology) classes to highlight the difference between holometabolic and hemimetabolic insects, I know several thousand entomologists who would be super surprised to learn this.  

http://whalonlab.msu.edu/Student_Webpages/Cricket/lifestyle.htm

Grasshoppers, crickets and the rest of _Orthoptera_ are textbook examples (literally) of insects that go through incomplete metamorphoses.


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## Hedorah99 (Feb 11, 2008)

Genei Ryodan said:


> hmm i will take a pic of a criket larve but im pretty sure that cricket have larve form because i used to breed them and i seen small yellowish tiny worms before i seen some small pin heads.


Yea, the small tiny worms were nothing to do with the cricket lifecycle. If you are seeing small worms, its probably maggots feeding on dead crickets.


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## Stylopidae (Feb 11, 2008)

Hedorah99 said:


> Yea, the small tiny worms were nothing to do with the cricket lifecycle. If you are seeing small worms, its probably maggots feeding on dead crickets.


Or nematodes, mealworms from contamination of food, the eggs themselves have been known to be confused for worms...there's a thousand things those could have been.


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## Hedorah99 (Feb 11, 2008)

Cheshire said:


> Or nematodes, mealworms from contamination of food, the eggs themselves have been known to be confused for worms...there's a thousand things those could have been.


True, I was just thinking maggots because raising crickets is such a godawful stinking affair, maggots seem to go hand in hand with it :razz:


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## verry_sweet (Feb 11, 2008)

I’m not sure what you are seeing but maybe it’s the cricket eggs. Here is a good page on early crickethood.

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag...oscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmar06/rs-cricket.html




Ed_z115 maybe you have springtails(Collembola). I don’t know if they can be confused for worms though. If you do have springtails then they are beneficial to your tank if not in large numbers.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/2654/bgimage


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## Kris-wIth-a-K (Feb 11, 2008)

*hmm*

well did you get your substrate from?????


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## Kris-wIth-a-K (Feb 11, 2008)

where*...............


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## Ed_z115 (Feb 13, 2008)

thanks for the posts everyone! i got the substrate from next year reptiles and its called invert mix, i cant get any pictures of them and cant really identify them at all because there so small, but i would imagine they look like the picture that was posted before, also iv never fed her anything but crickets so its not mealworms, thanks again for the help


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## cacoseraph (Feb 13, 2008)

damn, if you can see individual nematodes, i want some!


my bet is some kinda fly larva.  those suckers can be pretty tiny!


they move in a sort of undulating pattern that can be sorta useful to tell them apart from somethign that walks with legs or whatever



edit:

also, buy a decent triple lens magnifying glass (glass lenses are better, but plastic is doable). with macro mode you can take pics of incredibly small stuff.  with a 5MP cam, 3x optical, and 15x worth of plastic lenses i can take pics of stuff under 1mm 

er, could, rather.  i accidentily killed my camera =P


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