D.granti egg care

[a.ojala]

I've noticed they turn a yellow tint a day or two before they hatch.

 

[a.ojala]

Also if anybody wants some D.Granti or D.Tityus larvae let me know

 

[Dynastes]

If the substrate is loose, newly hatched larvae can easily reach other eggs and may well eat them, I lost around 100 Dynastes hercules eggs like this one time.

So you had what number of larvae eat 100 eggs? Did you see them eat the eggs versus ova being infertile or otherwise defective? I've raised quite a few rhinos and I've never seen an egg eaten by an early fist instar larva but it may well be a difference in methods. How big was the container, how much substate and were eggs placed on top or bottom, how many weeks or months apart were the eggs?

 

[Matt]

So you had what number of larvae eat 100 eggs? Did you see them eat the eggs versus ova being infertile or otherwise defective? I've raised quite a few rhinos and I've never seen an egg eaten by an early fist instar larva but it may well be a difference in methods. How big was the container, how much substate and were eggs placed on top or bottom, how many weeks or months apart were the eggs?

The container was a plastic tub from Ikea, base dimensions around 50 x 25 cm. The tub had about 5 cm of fine substrate added, then around 130 Dynastes hercules lychii eggs were added and covered over with another 5cm of loose substrate. The substrate was pest free - no wireworms, earthworms or other potential egg predators. The maximum difference in age between the youngest and oldest eggs would have been about 6-7 weeks.

They were the product of a laying tank containing 5 females and 1 male. I had already removed smaller numbers of eggs (30-40) from the tank previously and had had these in small batches in deli-pots and every one of these had hatched, so I very much doubt that any later eggs were infertile, particularly as "losing" this many eggs would mean going from a 100% hatch rate to a ~25% hatch rate.

The only reason I went for the larger tub was lack of space, I thought it might be easier to manage them if the larvae were all in one tub. The eggs were added and left for a few weeks, then the tank tipped out and inspected. Result - 100 "missing" eggs. I didn't actually see the larvae eating eggs but this seems to be the only logical explanation, all the other factors (temp, substrate) were the same as for those eggs which had a 100% hatch rate.

 

[Dynastes]

I use smaller containers and not quite so many eggs but I only put eggs together collected on the same day so they're rarely more than a week different in age. At 6-7 weeks some of those ought to have been L2 when eating their siblings and they were probably eating the teneral hatchlings rather than the eggs.

 

[Matt]

The maximum age difference between any of the larvae in the tub, assuming some hatched as soon as they were placed in the tub, would be about 4 weeks at the most, so they would all have been L1 larvae while they were in there with the eggs.