Any one ever seen a pupa this small?

[herpencounter]

It's about 1/2 the size of a normal mealworm pupa :main_robin: ....

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[Pepper]

Yeah, my teacher has a lot of meal worms and most of them look like that in pupae form.

 

[herpencounter]

I have 170 pupas atm and this one is 1/2 the size of all of them.

 

[fallen_angel]

Yeah, they range in sizes.. some can be smaller than most, some bigger, etc.

 

[laurlaur12]

i have a few tiny ones. they seemed to turn into fairly normal beetles though, so you are probably okay

 

[hoppslover]

I have had a mix of sizes too.

 

[Snowy & Petra de Gecko]

Not Yet

I have not seen a mealworm pupae that small.

I would assume that the little thing just did not eat enough before it began to turn into a pupae.:main_yes:

 

[nats]

I get small ones sometimes, but not that small.
Those are little mutants!

 

[herpencounter]

Its been 3 days and its still alive be interesting to see if I get a tinny beetle lol.

 

[herpencounter]

Here is the little guy he/she is sooooooooooooooooooooo small:main_rolleyes:

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[cwazy]

nuttin wrong with being little!

nice quarter... is it all silver?!?!?!

 

[herpencounter]

Nope 2 years off (1964 and less are 90% silver).

 

[cwazy]

i couldnt remember if it was 64 or 68.... i knew it was 2 years one way or the other LOL... ive got a handfull of em, they are fun to listen to when you drop them on the table top lol... *shrug*

 

[lillith]

I have two full-fledged mealie bins up and running. The first one is the one I mainly take my feeders from; I've noticed that since I pick the biggest, fattest ones to feed out that the new cycle in that bin has somewhat smaller mealies and beatles (in its different drawers) now.

Due to overflow, about 2 months after my first bin, I set up another one. Out of fear of decimating the population, I left it nearly completely alone. The mealies in that are larger and so are the beetles, some of them are nearly twice the size of the others.

It makes me wonder if I could selectively create slightly different-sized strains from the same stock, so I could use my smaller mealie strain for little geckos and the bigger ones for my breeders.

None of this has been given "rigorous scientific testing" of course, I don't know if the variables such as what temperature or the substrate mix I'm feeding them has an effect; I mean, it's different from the person who I got the colony from, so who knows?
I also don't know to what effect my "selection" has had on them or whether that's just the way it is.

Has anyone else had similar experience with this sort of thing? I imagine that's how "giant mealies" got started, was selective breeding...any insights out there?

 

[herpencounter]

No giant mealies are given growth hormones so they don’t pupate and grow larger (if they do become pupa the beetles wont lay eggs).

Now if your thinking of super worms that’s a different kind of mealworm.

 

[lillith]

No giant mealies are given growth hormones so they don’t pupate and grow larger (if they do become pupa the beetles wont lay eggs).

Now if your thinking of super worms that’s a different kind of mealworm.

No, I was thinking of Giants (super worms are a different species, yes?), I just didn't realize they were hormone-induced.
Well, shoot, now I'm gonna have to see if I can breed extra-large mealies without hormones. Just to see if I can. teehee

 

[herpencounter]

I was thinking about that the other day... idk if I want to spend the time doing that though
Be nice if mealworms would be bigger, super worms take so long to grow, 1 year from egg to beetle.

 

[myjoyoverflows]

haha...wow...that thing is tiny! I've seen some pretty small ones...but my goodness!

 

[HepCatMoe]

usually female pupae are larger than male pupae.

i originally had the idea to selectively breed my mealworms by choosing only the largest pupae. however, if i had done that, there wouldve been a good chance i wouldve separated out all the males. oops.

good thing i did a little research first.