Commercial giant mealworms side effects?

[Craig4106]

I fed a giant mealworm from "Timberline" to a wild caught adult limbada female who was eating 10-20 fruit flies previously just fine. After eating 2 mealworms, she was behaving sluggish and about 3 days later I noticed she was blind. Anyone else have this problem? Or any other side effects from any type or size of a commercial meal worm, Being fed to a mantis ?

 

[Krissim Klaw]

Giant mealworms are normal mealworms treated with a chemical hormone that stops them from pupating properly and makes them instead grow quickely and larger with each shedding. This same chemical is also used in certain pesticides. Its supposedly only considered detrimental to invertebrates, and petstores and other places will sell them because most people are buying feeders such as that for reptiles, amphibians and so on (although a lot of herp people don't trust them either). Giant mealworms tend to be cheaper to produce than the slower growing but safe Superworms, which are an entirely different species from mealworms. To further confuse things, a lot of petstores use the names Giant Mealworms, Superworms, and Kingworms interchangeably.

I would not feed the altered mealworms, which in this case it sounds like you might have gotten. I've personally never had a problem with regular mealworms or superworms.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Good to know.

 

[Sticky]

Oh no! I guess now they will go to my leopard geckos

 

[sschind]

Giant mealworms are normal mealworms treated with a chemical hormone that stops them from pupating properly and makes them instead grow quickely and larger with each shedding. This same chemical is also used in certain pesticides. Its supposedly only considered detrimental to invertebrates, and petstores and other places will sell them because most people are buying feeders such as that for reptiles, amphibians and so on (although a lot of herp people don't trust them either). Giant mealworms tend to be cheaper to produce than the slower growing but safe Superworms, which are an entirely different species from mealworms. To further confuse things, a lot of petstores use the names Giant Mealworms, Superworms, and Kingworms interchangeably.

I would not feed the altered mealworms, which in this case it sounds like you might have gotten. I've personally never had a problem with regular mealworms or superworms.

Well said. Many chemicals that exterminators use work this way. It doesn't kill the bugs you have it just keeps them from growing up and reproducing and eventually they die off on their own. I needed to do this in my store with a roach infestation I had once because I could't afford to use poisons around all my animals. Just think of it this way, if giant mealworms are exposed to hormones to keep them from molting and maturing what are those hormones going to do to the insects that eat them? I wouldn't take the chance.

 

[jsorigami]

As Krissim said, superworms are a safer alternative. The difference between to mealworms and superworms is that mealworms are North American and superworms are South American, hence they can't be refrigerated. I prefer superworms for the larger mantises over giant mealworms. Best of luck.

 

[PlayingMantis]

I have no issues with using (regular) mealworms and superworms. I once bought a box of giant mealworms from the petstore without knowing any better. I thought the giant mealworms were so large because they were a different species or variety. :no: