I am having problems with my dermestid colony.
The colony (about three years old) became contaminated with mites this past summer. Using the archives on this forum I successfully restarted the colony and they were doing great. Recently however, I have had almost no reproduction and the mature beetles don't even seem to having sex. I haven't seen any more mites after I cleaned the tank and restarted but I am at a loss as to what what the problem is.
Can someone offer some suggestions or insight into the potential problem and/or possible solutions?
Thanks
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some Viagra may help........
sorry, couldnt resist
Make sure your temperature is set right. Make sure your enclosure is large and place a heat lamp over one end the way you would for the husbandry of herptiles. That is - create a thermal gradient - warmer in one end than the other. It may not be necesary but won't hurt - and if temperature IS a factor in their behaviour (or lack thereof as the case may be) this will provide some variation for them to find their own optimal comfort zone.
Make sure there is proper bedding material. Try some cotton batting. I avoid the corrugated cardboard some people use as formaldehyde is often employed in its manufacturing. This bedding material will provide areas for adults to go off feed and also for young to progress through their instars.
The only other thing I can think of is another technique from herptile husbandry and that is to brumate some of your beetles. Take say 10% of your adult population, place them in a plastic container with some bedding material and place them in the refrigerator for a month or so. Return them to a new enclosure after that month and see if their performance differs from the remaining portion of the colony. Brumation simulates the winter cooling effects of colder areas and helps establish proper breeding cycles in reptiles and amphibians. Again - this may not apply, but just might help kick start their labido ;)
Temperature is the first thing I'd look into though as if it's too cool it may just be their metabolism slowing down. Are they still feeding regularly and cleaning efficiently? If so then temperature probably isn't your culprit...
Hopefully Taxidermologist will catch this thread and possibly offer other suggestions...
does it work on husbands as well and if how long should I keep my husband in the refrigerator? You think till Christmas is long enough or longer? ROFLMAO
Raven this is not true! i go swimming every year with the Jamestown penguin club on New Years day. When I am chilled, I got to teell you, the incidence of procreation to make new life is almost imnposswible at that temperature if you know what i mean ROFLMAO!
let them watch the Victoria's Secret TV specials.... sure works for me ! seriously though , I got rid of my colony as they were too much of a pain.
Ya bunch of knuckleheads - this place wouldn't be the same without ya ;)
Porno flicks with beetle subtitles!
While some of you are finding great humor in this, and I agree a little humor is necessary in life, I just can't get too giddy over it all. You did give me a chuckle though, thanks.
Raven, I will explain what I have recently done and observed a little more thoroughly. As I stated above, I had mites earlier this year. Restarting the colony went well with young larvae active in large numbers in a couple weeks. More recently, I thought I had mites in the colony again as they went off their feed and I was seeing few young larvae. I could not see any mites but I cleaned the colony again to restart using the same technique as the previous time. This time though there was vitually no copulation and subsequently no larvae.
I keep the temperature at 76 F. I have gone through many generations of beetles using the methods I am using so I some level of confidence in the technique. I haven't had to brumate in the past to maintain the numbers in the colony. It seems the mature larvae pupate and emerge as beetles but I am getting no young larvae from these adult beetles, and consequently there are fewer and fewer larvae to clean bones. I will try brumation but I think there are other factors influencing this situation.
If you think of something else, please post it.
Thank you.
I will first admit bugs are not my specialty, but there is a group of lions in an isolated area in Africa that are cut off from the general lion population. Over the years, the strain has dwindled down, due in part to the lack of new genes being introduced into the gene pool. (Inbreeding)
So, do the dermestid colonies require the addition of outside genes from time-to-time in order to survive? Like I said, I'm not very familiar with "A Bug's Life."
The problem is, you still have mits!
I didn't respond earlier to this question because I put in most of the information on mites and dermstids in the archives (which you referenced before posting this thread).
First I would suggest that inbreeding is not a problem. Insects have sufficient variation amoung small numbers of individuals to have no effect on reproduction. That only occurs in more advanced Chromosome/DNA systems.
1)Humidity and 2)palatability/fat of the food and 3) dermestarium protocol, are all possibilities of your problem. Mites are more than likely always present in small numbers. By shedding the outside exoskeleton during each instar the mites are shed off, except those that come back by crawling. Keep the humidity up to an acceptable level but not too moist - we don't know where you live, so can't realistically give you misting schedules. Some areas need lots of misting where others need less - i.e. running a colony in Houston is much different than Maine.
The amount of fat and moisture in the tissue being submitted is also important. Very lean meat is not conducive for good reproduction, as is very dry meat. Just dry the meat/skull overnight and place in a freezer. Then get out and add when the colony needs food. However, don't add anymore meat than can be eaten in a 7-10 day period. What I mean is, in starting up a colony, use small skulls of pieces of jerky to get the colony started. One muskrat skull a week per container, over a period of time will build up under good circumstances. I sometimes begin small colonies in sealed gallon jars with no cotton batting at all - simply jerky or a small skull and some bugs (adults or larvae).
The other possible infecting agent is letting the frass remain in your aquarium. Some Museum collections actually leave all frass in the aquarium until it fills the whole container full. I however remove loose frass to a cardboard box set in the aquarium and allow the bugs to crawl out. A few days later I remove the box of frass and place it in a plastic shoebox type container with a small piece of jerky and as the bugs crawl out I place them back in the main colony.
The archives will have lots of info. If you type in the word taxidermologist and dermestid, you will get a number of posts I have put in the archives in the past. I have had colonies running continuosly since 1978 so have run into most situations that may arise.
Good luck!
Thats one of my Grrrs! when I see that. Animals copulate, procreate. Sex is for pleasure in humans.