Collecting Insects as Reptiles & Amphibian Food: Traps & Tips

bronxzoofrank

New Member
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270
Location
NY
Hi, Frank Indiviglio here. I’m a herpetologist, zoologist, and book author, recently retired from a career spent at several zoos, aquariums, and museums, including over 20 years with the Bronx Zoo.
Although it’s below freezing here in NY, my thoughts are straying to a favorite warm-weather activity – collecting insects for my herp collection. Invariably, I find species that are new to me, and others that I wind up keeping alive in small terrariums. Drawing on a lifetime of collecting for my pets and the animals under my care at the Bronx Zoo, I’ve written articles on capturing, using, and breeding many invertebrates, including sap beetles, leaf litter dwellers, “meadow plankton”, earwigs, sow bugs, grasshoppers, and many others. In this article, I’ll summarize my favorite collection techniques and traps. Links to articles containing further information are also included. As I and other herp-keepers have barely scratched the surface of this topic, please be sure to post your own thoughts and experiences below. Read the rest of this article here Collecting Insects as Reptile Pet Food - Tips | That Reptile Blog
Please also check out my posts on Twitter http://bitly.com/JP27Nj and Facebook http://on.fb.me/KckP1m

My Bio, with photos of animals I’ve been lucky enough to work with: That Pet Place welcomes Zoologist/Herpetologist Frank Indiviglio to That Reptile Blog | That Reptile Blog

Best Regards, Frank
 

Cliff43J

New Member
Messages
23
Hi, Frank Indiviglio here. I’m a herpetologist, zoologist, and book author, recently retired from a career spent at several zoos, aquariums, and museums, including over 20 years with the Bronx Zoo.
Although it’s below freezing here in NY, my thoughts are straying to a favorite warm-weather activity – collecting insects for my herp collection. Invariably, I find species that are new to me, and others that I wind up keeping alive in small terrariums. Drawing on a lifetime of collecting for my pets and the animals under my care at the Bronx Zoo, I’ve written articles on capturing, using, and breeding many invertebrates, including sap beetles, leaf litter dwellers, “meadow plankton”, earwigs, sow bugs, grasshoppers, and many others. In this article, I’ll summarize my favorite collection techniques and traps. Links to articles containing further information are also included. As I and other herp-keepers have barely scratched the surface of this topic, please be sure to post your own thoughts and experiences below. Read the rest of this article here Collecting Insects as Reptile Pet Food - Tips | That Reptile Blog
Please also check out my posts on Twitter http://bitly.com/JP27Nj and Facebook http://on.fb.me/KckP1m

My Bio, with photos of animals I’ve been lucky enough to work with: That Pet Place welcomes Zoologist/Herpetologist Frank Indiviglio to That Reptile Blog | That Reptile Blog

Best Regards, Frank
Good to read your thread. I set up a terrarium for my grandsons, ages 2, 9, & 10. They love them. We have a pair of juvenile albino chocolate geckos. Food is my major issue now. I am not overly wild about buying live food as it is a 30+ minute drive and prices are more than I care to pay. We have black soldier flies all over our property and had a BSF larvae setup for our chickens at one time. We tried some novel breeding setups because of limited resources. They worked, but they had serious drawbacks. We discontinued them. Now we are ready to do a proper setup for them. Who knows what else we will try? lol...
 

acpart

Geck-cessories
Staff member
Messages
15,484
Location
Somerville, MA
Note that the original poster posted this 11 years ago. Good luck with the black soldier flies. If you order a bunch of really small crickets via mail (I use Tophat Crickets) you can feed off the crickets gradually and they'll take a number of weeks to grow so you won't have to order them too often. You can also breed crickets and/or mealworms. Breeding crickets is somewhat smelly.

Aliza
 

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