meallies eating stomach again - poll

[Thorgecko707]

OMG, I am so horrified by all the snide comments, sarcasm, and jokes in this thread! This is a SERIOUS problem and we MUST do something about it. My first leopard gecko, Hefner, died after a mealworm ate a hole clear through his stomach, down through the paper towel substrate, and through the bottom of the glass aquarium I kept him in. I never did find that little murderous mealworm, but I have found holes around my house since then. I think he's still alive. These mealworms can KILL!! I once heard of a band of entomologists who hatched a plan to break into Fort Knox using only a wheelbarrow full of mealworms. Let's do something about this problem, people! :main_evilgrin:

For real? It ate through the glass?!

 

[bettafish]

It's impossible... that guy is lying

 

[acharpenter]

I dont know - as of my post here 291 say its BS then there are 10 total otherwise.

I tend to believe that the stomach acid in anything would digest any creature before it gets to "eating" its way out. If I didnt believe that - I guess I would go with the 291 VS 10

 

[blueappal]

I'm pretty sure my leo tears the heads off mealies himself.

 

[nessa]

If that was really true you think the mealworms would eat the stomach of whatever it is fed too.

 

[grboxa]

+111111111!!!
if you cut the head they will die, so your gecko wont hunt him/her!!!!
my gecko never eats a dead worm or cricket or whatever i fed him with.

He eats around 4 or 5 super a day. i can tell you, there is no way anything will survive in there. he gets really aggresive.
plus i read somewhere on the forum that the acids on their stomache are very effective....please correct me if i'm wrong!

yeah ur right, alot of leos I hear dont eat anything thats still so that really makes no sense....i have to feed my little guy mealworms with a tweezer...its funny because he wiats for it to make a move...with every move the worm does he comes closer with his tail goin crazy...lol

 

[Miami geckos]

Not true at all.

Alfonso
http://miamigeckos.com

 

[Syn]

The Petsmart I go into on occasion had a customer go in and tell them about how one of their geckos eating a mealworm and having it latch onto the side of the gecko's mouth and cause a bit of damage to the walls of the mouth, but never have I heard a story (with proof) about how a meal worm, super worm, etc. had eaten through stomach lining.

For one, the mealworm would most likely drown before being able to do anything, and for another, generally speaking they are practically mangled to the point that they can't move.

 

[joshuadude]

On this same mealworm note, is it possible for a superworm to do this? I was told this by a lady at petsmart, she seemed very smart and has always been nice to me - but I dont know if I should avoid giving my littleman superworms or not because of this?

 

[Dimidiata]

Supers can bite their lips but once again, they get crushed and drown. Ive seen pics of mealies burrowing through stomaches.. after the leo died and they went from the outside in. More then likely where this all started. This is a nice topic and all but how many more polls/threads about it will be made lol?

 

[JeffDenver]

yeah ur right, alot of leos I hear dont eat anything thats still so that really makes no sense....i have to feed my little guy mealworms with a tweezer...its funny because he wiats for it to make a move...with every move the worm does he comes closer with his tail goin crazy...lol

I do the same thing with my Gecko that I did with my Cornsnake...I make the food do a zombie dance, and that triggers their feeding reflex.

Mine will not eat anything unless it is moving. If the mealworms are not active I have to make them to the zombie dance to get her to eat them.

 

[Vinss Laurie]

I'm relieved to see this being uncovered as a myth, I was about to begin integrating meal worms and super worms to most of my lizards' diet shortly and since super worms have very strong mandibles (their bite can be uncomfortable even for a human) and the head lives on for a while even after being removed, it sort of scared me.

If you don't mind me steering the subject to another question/concern of mine (since the myth has pretty much been covered), I have heard that meal worms and super worms are harder to digest because of their harder shell than lets say, a cricket, or softer worms such as Goliath/horned worms, or silk worms. Is this true?

Also, I've switched some of my vivariums over to bio-active substrate and have released some super worms into the substrate, I am guessing they will eventually turn into beetles, I've read these beetles were edible but reptiles mostly look the other way because they have some sort of stink to them. What about meal worm beetles, I have heard they are toxic, is this true?

Thanks for looking into it, these are just questions that have been bothering me and my research has brought back shallow results.

 

[Russellm0704]

This topic of mealies eating through a geckos stomach needs to be banned on this forum. It never seems to die and a new thread pops up about it just when It starts to die out.

 

[Dimidiata]

AMEN! Well let me clarify, dont we have a sticky about it yet or a Common misconceptions sticky?

 

[grboxa]

I'm relieved to see this being uncovered as a myth, I was about to begin integrating meal worms and super worms to most of my lizards' diet shortly and since super worms have very strong mandibles (their bite can be uncomfortable even for a human) and the head lives on for a while even after being removed, it sort of scared me.

If you don't mind me steering the subject to another question/concern of mine (since the myth has pretty much been covered), I have heard that meal worms and super worms are harder to digest because of their harder shell than lets say, a cricket, or softer worms such as Goliath/horned worms, or silk worms. Is this true?

Also, I've switched some of my vivariums over to bio-active substrate and have released some super worms into the substrate, I am guessing they will eventually turn into beetles, I've read these beetles were edible but reptiles mostly look the other way because they have some sort of stink to them. What about meal worm beetles, I have heard they are toxic, is this true?

Thanks for looking into it, these are just questions that have been bothering me and my research has brought back shallow results.

Yes that is true, they are much harder to digest in comparison to other feeders like the ones you mentioned. In terms of the meal worm beetles, I don't believe there toxic, but they contain no nutritional value so feeding them is basically useless. Just remember a varied diet means a healthier gecko!:main_thumbsup:

 

[hotrodjunkie]

Interesting. I had a pet store cutie tell me supers with their mandibles had the potential to harm my guy. So perhaps I should pick some supers and see if he'll like 'em now that he is eating fewer mealies lately?

 

[grboxa]

Interesting. I had a pet store cutie tell me supers with their mandibles had the potential to harm my guy. So perhaps I should pick some supers and see if he'll like 'em now that he is eating fewer mealies lately?

superworms do have strong mandibles relative to there size, and heard instances where they caught on to a geckos mouth, didnt do severe harm but still scary to hear. I dont feed supers, but I heard one way to kind of decrease the potential of harm with there mandibles is to crush there heads before feeding.:main_thumbsup:

 

[Russellm0704]

Leo's digest mealies and supers just fine. Supers are even easer to digest than mealies if you use the right size. All 5 of my geckos are fully on mealworms and they poop once a night. Once every two nights at most. Leo's just digest worms better than a lot of other lizards. On the other hand, my bearded dragon did not digest mealworms well at all so he was switched back to crickets.

 

[MarkXS]

I don't think I've seen this brought up yet, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the myth can be attributed to bot fly larva. Bot flies lay their eggs on an animal near a sore or open wound, the eggs hatch and the small larva enter the wound where they burrow under the skin and start eating their host from the inside out. (if you want to feel real itchy and grossed out, do a google search on bot fly larva)

The few people that I've talked to who say that they've actually seen this happen admit that the lizard was an anole. All anoles are wild caught and would be exposed to these flies in the wild, Anoles and bot flies share much of the same range and it wouldn't take many of these parasitic grubs to kill a small lizard like an anole. Also bot fly larva look at least superficially like a meal worm (small pale colored grub)

I don't know for sure, this was told to me by a few different people with more experience then I with wild animals but it does makes sense. I don't think it would be possible for an actual meal worm to eat it's way out of the stomach of any animal that ate it. But a parasite that kills it's host and then leaves the body after the host died sounds a lot more plausible to me.