Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Pupa and Adults Yes, But Still No Eggs

Today, I found 4 adults in the pod- one was female, the others were male. They seem to like to sit on the insulation.
Today was very cloudy and somewhat chilly- the current temp is 15.4C.
We had another huge crawl-off, this time it was 93. 12 were very large (and we are assuming female) while the other 81 were small or medium-sized. Of the 81, 8 were moving and likely very mature larvae on the verge of pupation.
We've had about 250 larvae crawl-off in the past few days likely because we have started to feed them more. We have started to feed them more, so that the maggots continue to create a synonome to attract the female BSFs back to the pod, and also, at this point, we wish to speed up the maturation process so that we can get as many adults as possible before the summer is out.
In the pupa bucket, there was also 1 female and 3 males.
I've noticed the adults are quite laid-back, they seem to enjoy crouching on top of the sawdust and don't move around too much. However, when I poked a female with my pen, she immediately flew away (unfortunately in the opposite direction of the pod however).
I have yet to find any dead BSF adults in the pod- I'm hoping to find one almost as much as I'm hoping to find eggs because adults are very neat looking and I wish to take samples of each gender so that I can preserve them to use in potential future presentations.

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