Tragically, our biopod is stuck at customs, and has been for over two weeks while I was at grandma's noshing on delicious southern barbeque. (Thank you Dr. A for looking after the little guys while I was away). This is an issue since larvae and pupa need such different conditions for survival; larvae love extremely humid and hot environments while pupa prefer drier conditions. And it takes only two weeks for a larval to pass through all five instars and become a pupa. This means that we most definitely have at least a few pupa, and these pupa are unhappy with their current humid/hot environment. We had hoped to have the biopod installed by now; with the biopod, the larvae would be able to crawl off, in to a separate part (with drier, more ideal conditions) of the pod when ready to pupate.
Rylo and I considered a few options and this is what we decided to do: I spread all of the BSF out on a tray and transferred all extremely dark/coffee bean brown pupa in to a separate container with drier conditions. We're reallly reallly hoping for an adult (fingers crossed!). Here's the current count- Pupa: 17, Larvae: 113 (alive), Adults: 0.
Photo #1: Here you can see the lighter coloured larvae and darker coffee bean coloured pupa.
Photo #2: Yogurt container: pre-separation of larvae and pupa. The large majority of light coloured larvae have crawled to the bottom
of the container to be in an environment with
maximal moisture.
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