Wow, mealworms are indestructable.

[Specialmias]

A few years ago I had started on my first batch of slings. I had gotten my first 1/8th of an inch curly hair sling and decided I'd feed her mealies. She outgrew them in a year or so (She's now 5.5 inches and very old). As for the mealworm colony they were given to a friend of mine for fishing purposes. Apparently he "forgot" the colony and assumed it died off 3 and a half years ago. Last night we were rumaging through his basement and I found my old colony that I had started long long ago covered in dust. The oatmeal that was originally there was now a fine powder littered with the corpses of beetles. To my surprise there they were,tons of mealies running around alive and well with no outside intervention for 3 years. Honestly I'm quite impressed and am giving them some food and filtering out the live mealies.

 

[ScorpDude]

Wow! Thats pretty damn impressive.

 

[Gigas]

Thats really impressive, another thing to add to the list of animals that will survive a nuclear holocaust?

 

[Specialmias]

I ended up picking out 134 or so dried beetle bodies. I counted them by weight it was around 20g of dead beetles.. The worst part was the dust from how finely ground up the oatmeal was, I couldn't stop sneezing.

 

[Gigas]

i used to geth that fine dust at the bottom of the mealworm tub i had, im surprised they did so well without water. what was the colony in? did it have a lid?

 

[8 leg wonder]

same thing happened with my colony, I forgot about for a year or so and when I stumbled across it it had more than tripled in size

 

[Specialmias]

Yes it had a lid it was in one of those "Plastic shoe boxes" the only source of air was a small vent I had made at the top with a mesh over it about 2.5"x2.5".
I also noticed cannibalism didn't seem to happen often any only 2-3 of the dead mealworms and beetles collected had any sort of biting on them.

 

[ilovebugs]

wow, that is very awesome.

I've been keeping a colony for 4 generations, they are turning to beetles now, soon they'll be mating again. it's fun. I don't do much, just toss a bananna peel or some other fruit/veggie in. I don't water them much, just a bit of misting once a week or so(they get alot of water from food)

that really amazes me though. reason being: they survived on the water that was in the original larva/beetles, maybe alitle came in through the vent (unless your friends basement is dry as a bone which is rare for basements)

how much oatmeal was there originally (if you can estamate)
and how much powder was left?


mine were in a substrate with alittle pine bark, they have turned it into a fine powder. it's crazy.