Nero Egernia
Well-Known Member
About a week ago I caught a pile of Christmas Moths (Dasypodia selenophora) and gave all the lizards a good feed.
I had quite a few moths left over so I left them in the container overnight and next morning I discovered a pile of eggs in there! I was really surprised as I have never seen Christmas Moth caterpillars or cocoons, let alone eggs. The last of the moths were fed out and I decided to keep the eggs. Then a week later (today) I discovered that the eggs had hatched and there were ultra tiny, wiggly, loopy caterpillars running around everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. They easily scaled the plastic sides and out through the ventilation slits of the bug container. I collected what caterpillars I could find and put them back in the container, while putting roach-stay around the edges. But they can still crawl over the roach-stay, however. :shock:
So my question is this; is there any way I can keep these caterpillars inside the container? Has anyone raised Christmas Moth caterpillars before?
I had quite a few moths left over so I left them in the container overnight and next morning I discovered a pile of eggs in there! I was really surprised as I have never seen Christmas Moth caterpillars or cocoons, let alone eggs. The last of the moths were fed out and I decided to keep the eggs. Then a week later (today) I discovered that the eggs had hatched and there were ultra tiny, wiggly, loopy caterpillars running around everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. They easily scaled the plastic sides and out through the ventilation slits of the bug container. I collected what caterpillars I could find and put them back in the container, while putting roach-stay around the edges. But they can still crawl over the roach-stay, however. :shock:
So my question is this; is there any way I can keep these caterpillars inside the container? Has anyone raised Christmas Moth caterpillars before?