Predatorhousepet
Well-known member
I've bought lots of waxworms over the years from many different suppliers for various creatures and they've always looked and acted the same. The last batch I bought I allowed to pupate and turn into moths, the first of which emerged yesterday. To replace those I bought another batch of waxworms from a new supplier but what I received may not actually be waxworms. They look sort of like waxworms except they are producing lots of web and encasing themselves in cocoon-like sacks as well as clumping all the sawdust into one big webby lump. The cocoons do not appear to be a precursor to pupating but rather more like a protective sack to hang out in, and they will reconstruct it if removed from it. (As an experiment I removed all the worms from the cup minus the webs and cocoons and put them into a cup with fresh sawdust, within 24 hours the cups were again filled with webs and cocooned worms.) I've never had waxworms do this before, the ones I let pupate just turned straight into pupa then moths, no webs or cocoons. These worms are also a LOT more active, than normal waxworms, they actively try to escape and are able to easily crawl over the lip of the cup. They are roughly the same size as a waxworm but not the same light golden color that waxworms usually are but more of a lighter beige color and some have darker brown lines on their segments. Did I receive some other type of worm, perhaps a waxworm relative or is this a normal part of regular waxworm behavior that I'd somehow never encountered before? Any idea what these worms could be?
