Moth Flies

[sufistic]

A long time back when feeder cultures were unheard of, I used to feed my wild-caught mantid nymphs this. These days FF seems much easier but what I'd like to know is whether it's possible to culture Moth Flies. Has anyone tried it?

 

[Peter Clausen]

Haha! Nobody ever talks about these...

These are one of my very favorite bugs!

I've also wondered if it is possible to culture them. I never see outbreaks of them, though it doesn't seem difficult to find a few individuals.

Took this photo a while back...

 

[sufistic]

Haha! Nobody ever talks about these...These are one of my very favorite bugs!

I've also wondered if it is possible to culture them. I never see outbreaks of them, though it doesn't seem difficult to find a few individuals.

Took this photo a while back...

Phew! Glad that an expert such as yourself likes these flies as well because judging from their quite disgusting roots, I doubt that anyone would dare feed them to their mantids! I used to catch them a lot and mass feed my nymphs and they all did alright.

 

[ZoeRipper]

Hmm.. I wonder if Oklahoma has these?

 

[ismart]

I find these guys in my jobs bathrooms all the time. Cultivating them may prove to be difficult being they seem to live in sludge and sewage.

 

[C.way]

me too, bunch of them in the bath room, trying to feed my nymph with it but they don't seems to appreciate it

 

[gadunka888]

i see this every time i wake up early to go to school.....

They usually come out at night. I don't think you can culture them. Maybe you could used rotting vegtables as food..

 

[Opivy]

I've never seen one of these.

Also I've never seen "Eye floaters" before either, which people tell me is just weird...

I need to get out more-

 

[Peter Clausen]

I still love them. They're like the koala bears of flies.

 

[sufistic]

I still love them. They're like the koala bears of flies.

True. They're cute and fluffy. Also, I doubt rotting veges would work. Their larvae lives in the goo normally found in pipes and sewers. I have no idea how the heck that goo can be replicated.

 

[jameslongo]

I wouldn't recommend feeding these to mantids. Or anything that comes from the bathroom with chemicals flying this way & that. Last time I fed a moth fly to my mantid, it froze on its perched & fell off dead. The eggs of these little buggers need to be exterminated using a particular formula, since normal draino doesn't work :blink:

 

[sufistic]

I wouldn't recommend feeding these to mantids. Or anything that comes from the bathroom with chemicals flying this way & that. Last time I fed a moth fly to my mantid, it froze on its perched & fell off dead. The eggs of these little buggers need to be exterminated using a particular formula, since normal draino doesn't work :blink:

Yeah? My nymphs actually did fine.

 

[jameslongo]

I caught them straight after my shower. Probably fine as feeders but once bitten, twice shy.

 

[Orin]

These can be reared for feeders as easily as fruit flies. There was an article on rearing them in Invertebrates-Magazine a long time ago.

 

[ABbuggin]

These can be reared for feeders as easily as fruit flies. There was an article on rearing them in Invertebrates-Magazine a long time ago.

How was this done?

 

[sufistic]

Yeah how was this done Orin? Very interesting!

 

[JoeCapricorn]

I would guess a very very damp, possible partially submerged environment with algae as a food source, or maybe fruit. Maybe fruit fly culture would work... it ought to be damp though. Think about it, these fellas did not evolve with human bathrooms around until recently... so they must have some environment that is natural to them. I would guess a wetland type environment.

 

[PhilinYuma]

I've never seen one of these, either. It would be hard to keep an uncleaned drain just to breed them on the slime, but I wonder if human feces would work? Of course, you'd need to find a regular supply....

 

[Orin]

You guys think it's easy to flip through dozens of back issues looking for one little article? It appears they were fed apple cores and old fruit in water. It also says the pupae are mobile and active like those of mosquitoes.