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[Miss_Croft]

hornet – If you cannot buy them from the open market – ie there are no captive bred animals then they cannot be kept. My understanding is they are not on the list of animals the “general public” can keep on license in most Australian states.

notechistiger – can you shed some light on the said attempts of keeping thorny devils – Where were the thorny devils sourced?
How old were the thorny devils when sourced?
How long did the thorny devils live captive care?
What was learnt about keeping thorny devils?
What were the signs and symptoms before death – did they waist away slowly - start to fit before?
Did they feed the thorny devils on only captive bred insects or a mixture of wild caught and captive bred?

I still believe a change of diet is possible – there just has to be the incentive. A change to another captive bred crawling insects may be possible. (doubt wax worms are any good as they are too high in fat).

Also if they were wild caught animals what effort was made to rid the thorny devils of their parasite load – studies have shown wild animals have a very high parasite load – if put under stress or kept in an enclosed area could potentially kill the wild caught thorny devil (Much like wasting disease often seen in wild caught reptiles here in the US).