Hitchhikers

Roachman26

Roachman26

Seventh Instar
Anyone recognize these little hitchhikers? They came in with my lobster colony. I pull about this many out of there almost every day, but more keep coming. My baby box turtle thinks the adults and the larvae are great! Anyone know a good way to get rid of them, besides physically removing them? Anything I ought to know about them?

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Hi

Looks a bit like Dermestid beetle relatives; especially the hairy larvae. How big are they?

Some Dermestid beetles feed on dead insects and could be helpful in keeping the roach colony clean. I use small native relatives of the mealworms for that purpose.

Remove all roaches or all dead ones incl. the whole food (and paper, leaves etc.) which is as annoying as removing all beetles... I guess there is no way like with mites where you can keep the box dry for 2 weeks.

If you can feed them, why don't you keep them?

Grüessli

Andreas

 
Definately some type of dermestid beetle. There's a few users on here that have colonies.

 
Pharma said:
HiLooks a bit like Dermestid beetle relatives; especially the hairy larvae. How big are they?

Some Dermestid beetles feed on dead insects and could be helpful in keeping the roach colony clean. I use small native relatives of the mealworms for that purpose.

Remove all roaches or all dead ones incl. the whole food (and paper, leaves etc.) which is as annoying as removing all beetles... I guess there is no way like with mites where you can keep the box dry for 2 weeks.

If you can feed them, why don't you keep them?

Grüessli

Andreas
Click to expand...
Larvae start out around 1/4 inch and get up to about 1/2 inch. Adults are around 1/2 inch too. I guess they are just a bit of a nuisance. I wasn't trying to set up a dermestid beetle colony. I was going for Nauphoeta cinerea. The lobsters are doing exceedingly well and that IS my only bin with no Phorid flies. I guess they aren't so bad.

 
The nice thing about dermestid beetles is that they only eat dead things, so you don't have to really worry about them chowing down on your live roaches.

 
I can offer one word of warning about the beetles if you happen to be a hunter. I had a group neary destroy a few mounted birds I had in storage. They won't eat the feathers or bones but they will destroy the flesh in the wings making the mount fall apart. These were in storage for quote some time however so I would imagine it would be noticed if it was happening in you den lol.

How hard is it to keep the lobsters contained btw? I wanted to set up a colony soon.

 
I recently acquired a colony of these dermestids from a pet shop. I was buying some crickets when I saw a small beetle fly by. Of course, I was immediately interested and an employee explained to me that these live in their feeder roach bins. The neatest thing in their pet store and I got some for free!

The larvae are crazy fast and active, aren't they? They measure 10 to maybe even 12mm. The adults fly well. They are doing fine on dried dog food.

 
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I think you'd like the Dermestes lardarius better Peter. They're a little bigger, more coloful, and not so ambulatory.

 
The adult of the larder beetle is more attractive, but I think I actually prefer a ravenousl mobile scavenger!

 
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