harvestmen care

[GATORGAR56K]

i just caught 2 harvestmen, and i was wondering if anybody ever kept these before and could give me info on what to feed these guys, and what kind of setup and temperature/humidity i need, and finally, breeding info

 

[cacoseraph]

they aren't really much of hunters... but they will eat rotting/decaying animal AND vegetable matter

make sure to have a shallow open water dish

high communal

if you just caught them, then the temp/humidty is whatever it is outside

 

[GATORGAR56K]

so should i jus throw in a dead cricket or 2 once a week, and may b some carrots bits or somethin

 

[cacoseraph]

so should i jus throw in a dead cricket or 2 once a week, and may b some carrots bits or somethin

from what i have read and "heard" on here, i believe they have pretty weak mouth parts, so all the vegetable matter has to be pretty nasty and mushy

i would think banana mashed up and left until it turns black would be attractive.

you probably want to use a feeding saucer or something... when i was trying to keep these little guys i just plunked rotten shtuff down everyonce in a while... the rotting sucked, badly.

do you know how to sex them? the pedipalps are sex. dimorphic, to greater or lesser degrees, depending of species

oh yeah, and i would slit open and sort of pull apart the cricket lengthwise, exposing it's guts

it seemed like i had to sort of baby these guys a lot to get them to eat, compared to your standard tarantula or scorp... they are more like feeding tiny babies

 

[cacoseraph]

also, there are a lot of regional differences in common names, so we *are* talking about Opilione harvestmen, right?

check this Google Image Search or Bugguide... those little guys, that ARE NOT spiders, with long thin legs... arachnids of the Opiliones Order?

 

[GATORGAR56K]

yes, those harvestmen. i actually used to call them daddy longlegs, but to avoid confusion with them and the spider i use the term harvestmen now. so basicly, how should i go about getting the food to rot faster? also, what did you feed yours and how well did they do in captivity?

 

[Stylopidae]

Try sugar water mixed with banana with a pinch of vitamin powder thrown in for good measure. I've seen them catch and eat things from the wild, so I'm guessing they're a lot tougher than you give them credit for.

 

[GATORGAR56K]

ok, ill do that, cuz right now i put in some cricket food for them, and so far, they prefer staying at the top of the kritter keeper.

 

[Stylopidae]

The Opilione around here never seem to stay on the ground. They're always climbing something, which leads me to believe they are arborial.

Once they get hungry, they should go down to where the food is.

What's the humidity and what kind of substrate are using?

 

[Peter_Parker]

Has anyone here heard of the so called 'Giant Harvestmen' you see for sale every now and then? I wonder how much bigger they are than the average joe run of the mill ones you find in your backyard?