Flying Feeders

[Palespider]

Has anyone tried feeding flying insects to their arboreals; pokies and avics, etc?

After seeing how well my pokies can catch their crickets in mid air and hearing stories here on the forum of people tossing crickets to their avics and them jumping up and catching them, I've been itching to try some type of flying insects like moths. But I haven't because of the fear of pesticides. And I have never heard of any 'flying feeders' being available other than fruit flies.

I just thought it would be interesting to watch. You figure being arboreal they do encounter a large amount of flying prey in the wild and that arboreals may be more adapted for catching flying prey than crickets for example. Maybe the feathered legs that some arboreals have is an adaptation to jumping to catch their prey and parachuting safely to the ground with insect in mouth. And maybe the extreme fuzziness of avic's is an adaptation for detecting air movement from the flapping of insect wings and such.

Just a brain fart
Jim B.

 

[Gail]

I raise the wax worms to moths and give them to my avics - they love them, and they do pounce and jump on them too. I have been thinking about getting some of these (the hornworms further down the page)...

http://www.mulberryfarms.com/index.php?page=products

...to raise into big moths but I'm not sure my avics would tackle anything that big, athough I think that a large pokie would.

Gail

 

[Palespider]

Interesting, I had no idea that silk worms turned into moths

And those horn worms sound about perfect for (like you said) large pokies, which I have. I suspect a large avic could take one down but may be intimidated by that 4 inch wing span. Guess you'll never know till you try

I would really like to try and breed these since they are kind of expensive, and grow fast. The larvae reach full growth of 4 inches in only two weeks! Looks like the pupating can take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. It doesn't say if it's based on temp or what not.

Any ideas on breeding these guys? May be time for a google search.

Thanks for the info Gail

Jim B.

 

[abstract]

Another Silkworm thread:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6747&highlight=breed+silkworm

Wax worms are another thing to look at - they also turn into moths....

Culture info:
http://lhsfoss.org/fossweb/teachers/materials/plantanimal/waxwormmoths.html
Here's another good link with pictures:
http://www.adcham.com/html/insects/insects-waxworm-rearing.html

 

[Buspirone]

I had waxworms turn into moths...just as an attempt I offered the moths to my rosie. It was the fisrt time I saw her chase down food.

 

[metzgerzoo]

I feed flyers to my terresterials often as "treats". My G.rosea is particularily patical to moths. I simply remove one wing...yes, EWWWW, I know, but that way it can't fly and she goes straight for it, chows it down, then sits and stares at us waiting for the next one. A common house fly managed to get into one of the terresrals' tanks once and the next day was nowhere to be found, except for a partial part of a wing. How the T caught it...I have no clue, as she caught it that night after we all went to bed. So I would say, if you want to feed them flyers, go right ahead! If they can't catch the little buggers, then take away their flying licence!

 

[vulpina]

I have also tried moths for my T's they all seem to love them terrestrials and arboreals alike.

Andy