Eurycotis lixa Odd Behavior

All About Arthropods

All About Arthropods

Elliptorhina
Hi Guys!

One or two of my E.lixa are acting a bit strange. Unlike the others, they will just sit in one place, instead of running when I get my hand near them and when I nudge them to try to make them move they just walk very slowly. They're behavior is almost the opposite of the rest of the E.lixa in my colony.

Anybody know why they might be acting like this?

 
Stressed, close to death, dehydrated, sick. I would suggest separating them until their condition gets better. Maybe up your temps and increase humidity a bit and see if it helps.

 
Most likely sick or dehydrated because they aren't adults, so they wouldn't be close to death yet, and there is only 11 roaches in the colony in a large container, so I don't think they would be stressed.

I'll separate them and see what happens, it is already about 85 degrees and very humid where I am keeping them so they already have very warm and humid conditions.

 
Only ended up being one that was acting weird. I just transferred it into a 32 oz. container with some of the E.lixa substrate from the main container( coconut fiber,dead oak leaves, and cypress mulch) and a couple pieces of egg-crate. I sprayed some water on the side of the container so it could drink but it didn't.

It acts really weird, it doesn't even act like it's scared of me and actually let's me grab it's body and doesn't even run or anything. The only other insects that I've had that acted weird like this were a couple of large darkling beetles, they also never ate anything in my care and ended up dying about 2 weeks after I received them. Hope the same outcome does not happen with my E.lixa, it seems to be pretty fat though so I don't think eating is a problem.

 
Sounds a lot like stress to me. Maybe you're disturbing them too much? Leave them be for about 2-3 days (don't open the container or attempt to touch). Leave food in for it and just wait. Let me know if this helps at all.

 
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