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Dermestid beetles


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Has anyone had a problem with dermestid beetles in their colonies? A few snuck in the substrate of my enclosures and I don't want them eating ootheca or molting roaches.

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I've seen cleaner crews being sold that included Dermestids, so maybe you just got yourself some free help with reducing the amount of dead roaches. However, I'm not sure if they'll eat ootheca and live roaches or not, and it might depend on the particular species of Dermestids since I've heard of them damaging and destroying pinned insect collections.

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Haha sorry, I could have and should have been more clear. Roman is correct in that I meant pinned dead insects. I was trying to say that since pinned insects, which obviously are dead and thus make no attempt to escape, are sometimes eaten by Dermestids, I would think that ecdysing roaches, which are immobilized, and ootheca, which are stationary, may be at risk of getting eaten. Unfortunately, I'm not too well-versed in the biology of Dermestids, so maybe someone with much more knowledge can chime in.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about having them in my roach enclosures unless I've seen them munching away at my live roaches and their eggs. Lesser mealworms will hollow out several dead Blatta orientalis to its exoskeleton within a few hours, but I've never seen them going after ootheca or living roaches. Maybe it's the same with the Dermestids you have.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They sure know how to clean up a mess. Frankly I think they're more adaptive in enclosures than isopods so far.

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I have lesser meal worms and they are actually kind of disruptive to the roaches I see the roaches flick them, and generally get irritated by them if their population swells.

in hindsight I wouldnt have used them at all, and I am thinking they decimated my springtails.

:/

dermestids may be different, but at this point I really just would stick with springtails when substrate is involved and NOTHING but roaches when its not. you can clean non substrate tanks so easily...

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