TheBeesKnees
Well-known member
My wild caught girl enjoys wild caught meals, and being a kind of "paranoid mom", I always monitor her meals to make sure nothing strange happens.
Today, something strange happened.
I feed her medium to large sized flies, and today for lunch, I had managed to catch her a medium sized one. She caught it, and almost the moment she did so, several TINY maggots started crawling out of the fly's abdomen. Having watched and read a variety of things about insect parasites just last night, my brain went full "red alert" mode. I immediately encouraged the mantis to drop the meal, and I collected the fly, as well as every last maggot that writhed it's way out of the fly's rear (and a large chunk of the soil around and under them) and flushed it all down the toilet. Being no stranger to the world of insects, it certainly wasn't the gnarliest thing I had encountered, but when it's my beloved pet on the line, it's suddenly a lot more horrifying haha aaaahhh
SO after the fact, I did some quick research on the matter. I discovered that the fly I had fed my girl was a "flesh fly". Flesh flies are viviparous and house their live young in their abdomen, waiting to lay them on dung or on rotting flesh, etc. Lovely.
What I want to know is if anyone else has had this experience, and if anyone knows whether or not these tiny, wretched maggots would have posed any threat to a mantis at all. The quick, frantic research I did pulled up no information on the matter... but it would be nice to know for next time (though I hope there is no 'next time') whether these maggots would make a unwilling host out of my poor girl, or if she can just munch 'em down like little McMaggot fries with no adverse side effects?
...Man, insects are beautiful and I love them... but they are also sometimes the things of nightmares ha hahaha.
Today, something strange happened.
I feed her medium to large sized flies, and today for lunch, I had managed to catch her a medium sized one. She caught it, and almost the moment she did so, several TINY maggots started crawling out of the fly's abdomen. Having watched and read a variety of things about insect parasites just last night, my brain went full "red alert" mode. I immediately encouraged the mantis to drop the meal, and I collected the fly, as well as every last maggot that writhed it's way out of the fly's rear (and a large chunk of the soil around and under them) and flushed it all down the toilet. Being no stranger to the world of insects, it certainly wasn't the gnarliest thing I had encountered, but when it's my beloved pet on the line, it's suddenly a lot more horrifying haha aaaahhh
SO after the fact, I did some quick research on the matter. I discovered that the fly I had fed my girl was a "flesh fly". Flesh flies are viviparous and house their live young in their abdomen, waiting to lay them on dung or on rotting flesh, etc. Lovely.
What I want to know is if anyone else has had this experience, and if anyone knows whether or not these tiny, wretched maggots would have posed any threat to a mantis at all. The quick, frantic research I did pulled up no information on the matter... but it would be nice to know for next time (though I hope there is no 'next time') whether these maggots would make a unwilling host out of my poor girl, or if she can just munch 'em down like little McMaggot fries with no adverse side effects?
...Man, insects are beautiful and I love them... but they are also sometimes the things of nightmares ha hahaha.
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