mystery death of b boiehme Mexican fireleg and swarms of flys and , pupae of flys stuck everywhere?
They may be phorid flies. If so, then they are more likely to run around rather than fly (though they are certainly capable of flying). Phorid flies will seek out and lay their eggs in decaying organic material - including dead feeders, decaying food in your dubia tank, and dead spiders or other invert pets. They can detect dead or dying animals almost immediately and will respond by swarming the affected tank and laying eggs on any suitable organic material they can find. They have a very short life cycle, with larvae hatching out and begining to feed within 24 hours of eggs being laid. They do not usually hurt live animals, but I can't altogether rule it out, either. I've heard that the larvae can feed on sick or injured animals, so a serious infestation might be able to kill a weak or injured animal. The adult flies are able to detect a dead or dying animal almost immediately and will cover
I see them flying but they been attacking my dubia colony, T mighta been dead 5 days right after last feeding watering.
Actually attacking or just in there? Attacking is phorid flies, in there possibly not.
Fruit flies feed on moisture. Dead things, food left over, water crystals. Deprive them of that and they die off quickly.
I’ve dried everything out cleaning dead dubia out of every cage , these freaky things won’t die off.
"Attacking" is a bit of a misnomer. Phorid flies are not predatory and don't "attack" things in an aggressive manner. What you would see is the flies just walking around on stuff or landing on it - and if you looked really closely, under magnification, you would see them laying eggs. The eggs can be seen with the naked eye, but they are really teeny - just little white specks.
The enclosure was dry it even still had some water left, maybe an underlying condition weakened the T and fly’s moves in either before or after it dies.Is T enclosure damp? Also, I couldn't tell if that's a pale yellow/beige rock or a mushroom.
Anyway, very sorry you lost your T.
I also recommend a thorough cleaning of feeder enclosure -- really, a complete do-over. I also recommend keep using fly paper/tape and to continue to dry everything else out if possible. Also, remove any feeder food if not consumed within in 24 hours (remove fruit (or anything looking on verge of decaying) not consumed within 12 hours.). But really, any food fermenting or a rotting food source, coupled with additional moisture is just going to encourage these flies.
Was much less then a week , I think they might be phlorid flys see then running more then flying.
I use water crystals for the roaches as they are cheap and the roaches cannot drown in them.
While I haven't tried pantyhose, I have noticed that the dang things seem to be able to lay eggs right through the fabric mesh tops of the fruit fly cultures. We have to keep our fruit fly cultures in a different room than the rest of the bugs, just to keep the phorid flies from getting in to them. They appear to be able to out-compete the fruit fly cultures for food, or maybe the phorid larvae eat the fruit fly larvae or eggs, because once they invade a fruit fly culture, it ends up being mostly phorid flies instead.
Been years since a outbreak of these , gotta keep cleaning cages. DIY fly traps don’t kill enough, I’ve seen hundreds or thousands killed already no end in sight. See less but not enough less, dubia beeen decimated. Gotta keep throwing out egg cartoons so many eggs laid on them, and pupae.
Bad news had to throw out a hide flys invaded it, all hundreds of fly pupae!!!
Store bought mealworms,?