Ratmosphere
Well-known member
Can house fly pupae hatch under substrate? Some substrate spilled while transporting my mantis and the fly pupae are under it. There is less than an inch of substrate in the container.
Can house fly pupae hatch under substrate?
- Thread starter Ratmosphere
- Start date
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@Ratmosphere No, and at the depth of 1" (the substrate weight would be massive for the tiny fly to move) they would be trapped if they could hatch. You may see a few survive and make it, but likely most will be dead.
While their larvae (maggots) live inside material/food/carcass/whatever eating tunnels as they go they will pull themselves out and climb to a open area to pupae, usually up high (like seen in fruit fly cultures). With pupae, even if they are on a open surface but some fly pupae are layered/stacked on top of each other, typically the pupae on the bottom become trapped or will dry after hatching with the empty pupae glued to it.
Your best bet to save the pupae would be to carefully sift it using aluminum/fiberglass screen to recover the pupae from the substrate. Or replace the top 1" of the substrate, as the pupae will go bad and rot in the substrate; unless, you have a cleaning crew in the tank such as springtails and/or isopods that will clean up the pupae.
While their larvae (maggots) live inside material/food/carcass/whatever eating tunnels as they go they will pull themselves out and climb to a open area to pupae, usually up high (like seen in fruit fly cultures). With pupae, even if they are on a open surface but some fly pupae are layered/stacked on top of each other, typically the pupae on the bottom become trapped or will dry after hatching with the empty pupae glued to it.
Your best bet to save the pupae would be to carefully sift it using aluminum/fiberglass screen to recover the pupae from the substrate. Or replace the top 1" of the substrate, as the pupae will go bad and rot in the substrate; unless, you have a cleaning crew in the tank such as springtails and/or isopods that will clean up the pupae.
Ratmosphere
Well-known member
Just looked in the enclosure yesterday. Two of the fly pupae have hatched. So far my mantis hasn't shown interest in bigger prey. Hopefully my mantis will take one down today!
