Why are my superworms dying
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Hey guys! Today is going to be a short video addressing why your superworms may be dying in the larve stage, the pupa stage, and as full grown adults. But first, I'd like to share some video and pictures of a fan who sent them in. Their name is Caleb. Hi Caleb! This was quite the shot. This is a superworm pupa emerging from its larvae husk! Super exciting as I have never wittnessed this myself. Thank you Caleb for sending me this cool video and contributing to the channel! Alright, now back to the video
Lets start off with the larvae. Superworms will straight up eat eachother if they are lacking moisture. I found one that was being eaten alive after freshly molting. Unfortunately, I did not capture it on video. However, I did take the worm while he was still moving and fed it off to my leopard gecko. Waste not, want not. I make sure they go no period of time without something fresh in there now.
Another reason could be temp, they are not as resilent as mealworms. They do slow down, but they will eventually die or be eaten by less lethargic worms.
A good way to avoid mass die off is to always wash everything... and I mean everything.. you feed them throughly, to best avoid possible pesticides.
Pupa
While I have only ever had a few pupa die, I do have some ideas as to why this happens. The first being that I do happen to see a lot of people place their pupa all together after the worm changes. I do not suggest this due to the beetles hatching and being thristy and may start eating a pupa within a day or so. I keep all of mine completely isolated until they become beetles. I normally let them sit a day in their container, or turn towards an orange or brown, before introducing them into one of my 3 colonies.
Temp goes the same for the pupa as larvae, too cool and they will die.
And lastly, lack of humidity. It depends highly on where you live. My home humidity stays around 40-50%. I do not have to provide moisture to my pupa. However, if you live in a dry area, I would suggest keeping the humidity high in the area you keep your pupa in. You can even place a bowl with wet napkins in it in a closed off, small area, along with the pupa to boost the humidity. You can also give them a very light mist, or place them on or under a little shred of napkin and allow that to absorb water.
Beetle
My beetles rarely die outside of my expected age range of 4-6 months. Females are prone to die first. I believe they exhaust their body to the point that they can no longer function, and they are the ones that typically live less than 6 months. I am experiencing die off now, which I believe are the original 20 or 30 beeltes of my colony back in July. I have been having random females die all in the same manner periodically. When Zophobas Morio beetles begin to die, they start to not be able to control their legs. They almost always flip on their back and flail their legs, slowly, and randomly, and open their jaws wide, periodically. They will stay like this for days as their body slowly stops moving. It is extremely sad. I'll talk about how we can actually use this in an upcoming video.
If your beetles are dying in this manner, it seems to be natural, as it is very consistent in the way they die, and it only ever being a few. If you have not seen my sexing video, link is in the descript or click the card above, and see if it is female or not. I'd wager it is. Expect mass die off of males and females about 6 months into the colonies life. I am just not starting to have males die and having 1-2 a day is becoming normal. I expect it to end after 30 beetles have died. I collect their corpses for another purpose, which I will cover in an upcoming video.
To prevent beetle death. The same basic things that kill the worms, will kill the beetles. However, the beetles are more resilent to temp. If its too cold for them, their eggs may not hatch or take much longer to hatch, and they potentially will stop being able to reproduce, which is actually something my large colony recently faced. Who could have imagined that a 6 foot difference in height would be enough of a temp difference to allow 1 colony to breed, and one to not. So watch your temps guys! Very important.
So that's it guys! If you like this video and have it in your critter loving heart, give me a like, a subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more videos like this.
Why Superworms are Dying - Zophobas Morio Death - How to keep you superworms alive - Superworm Pupa
