Phoenix worms

[jennifer]

I recently bought some phoenix worms (soldier fly larvae) and put them into terrestrial setups with Cynops ensicauda juveniles. They look like an ideal terrestrial food - available in all sizes, good nutritional profile, etc. If you put them in a shallow dish, they sit there and wiggle - most of them don't climb out. The only problem is... the morphs do not seem to be eating them! Has anyone else tried these?

 

[cindy]

I've never tried feeding these to morphs, however I've fed them to my terrestrial salamanders, newts, frogs, toads and turtles and ALL of them eagerly accepted them. The fact that they move quite a bit is a big plus for an enticing food source.

 

[joseph]

Interesting. I've been offering rice flour beetle larvae to my morphs and they take them. Probably a good treat but not good for a staple. The good thing about them is they wriggle quite a bit so get the newts attention much better than worm bits, but the bad thing is that if you try "spot feeding" them the larvae will often try to burrow. They also die of too much moisture pretty quick so would be impractical in a wet setup.

 

[foster]

I thought that I posted this yesterday but I must have been distracted before actually clicking on post...


http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/24861/46715.html?1131073182


I have not purchased any since but overall my animals really seemed to enjoy them. The flies that they morph into were readily accepted by the lizards that I have. What I liked best about these larvae is how long they can survive with little or no maintenance. One of the cups that I had became misplaced behind a box and I did not find it again until several months later. Most of the larvae were still alive.
Chip

 

[charles]

I think I'm going to get some and try to feed them to my juvenile T.Marm's.

 

[tony]

i just picked up some larvae for the first time to add to my a. opacum's diet and like every time i buy food i dump the container out on a paper plate and pick out the dead. first i was pissed because the amount that were dead, or that i thought were dead.some of them looked healthy but where toatlly unresponsive to tweezer pokes and grabs

WOW these bugs hardly move. i left the dead on the container's top and walked away. came back 10mins later and found a few in the dead pile crawling about.

did the same paper plate thing with the waxworms i bought and those guys were crawling all over the place despite being in the fridge @ the petshop and the 10min drive. just thought it was weird behavior.. hope the wiggle a little bit more when it's feeding time

 

[michael]

If the phoenix worms dry out they slow down. Mist them a little and they should bounce back. I have used them but think they are kind of expensive for what you get.

 

[andy]

I got some at my local bait shop and they call them "spikes". The reason I got them was I have a very skinny paddletail that I can't get to eat. I think I paid $1 for aprox two dozen.