# Feeding mealworms to Darts?



## Crazy frog (Aug 8, 2010)

Anyone try feeding their adult full grown Phyllobates Terribilis or Bicolor with an medium size newly molted mealworms...will they be able to eat them?
Will there be any problem feeding them small and medium size mealworms?

thks


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I feed tincs and mantellas small mealworms all the time. I'm sure terribilis would enjoy them. All that stuff about chitin or mealworms chewing holes through stomachs is a myth.

However, sometimes the mealworms thrash a bit that can make it difficult for a frog to swallow-- but that's more of a problem if they're too large.


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## Crazy frog (Aug 8, 2010)

Rain_Frog said:


> I feed tincs and mantellas small mealworms all the time. I'm sure terribilis would enjoy them. All that stuff about chitin or mealworms chewing holes through stomachs is a myth.
> 
> However, sometimes the mealworms thrash a bit that can make it difficult for a frog to swallow-- but that's more of a problem if they're too large.



Great to heard that...thks for the reply!


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## RentaPig311 (Jul 6, 2009)

Ii tried feeding my guys meal worms and soldier grubs. They just weren't interested.


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## andyrawrs (Aug 16, 2008)

Rain_Frog said:


> All that stuff about chitin or mealworms chewing holes through stomachs is a myth.
> 
> However, sometimes the mealworms thrash a bit that can make it difficult for a frog to swallow-- but that's more of a problem if they're too large.


I'm sure terribillis can take mealies. I don't recall if they bite, but even if they did it wouldn't be much of a big deal. Just to clarify though, although it might not be a nuisance in our hobby it is not accurate to say that "that stuff about chitin...is a myth" because it isn't. The chewing holes thing almost certainly is a myth though. The chitin issue probably wouldn't affect our hobby but the bearded dragon community generally looks down upon feeding baby beardies with mealworms.

I second that the mealies will thrash though  

Andy


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

andyrawrs said:


> I'm sure terribillis can take mealies. I don't recall if they bite, but even if they did it wouldn't be much of a big deal. Just to clarify though, although it might not be a nuisance in our hobby it is not accurate to say that "that stuff about chitin...is a myth" because it isn't. The chewing holes thing almost certainly is a myth though. The chitin issue probably wouldn't affect our hobby but the bearded dragon community generally looks down upon feeding baby beardies with mealworms.
> 
> I second that the mealies will thrash though
> 
> Andy


A study demonstrated that in Sceloperous, that growth was greater in lizards fed mealworms as compared to crickets. Part of the reason is that the amount of protien available in chitin was grossly underestimated for a long time. It is now known to be as much as 7 times greater than was once estimated.... 

ED


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## andyrawrs (Aug 16, 2008)

Ed said:


> A study demonstrated that in Sceloperous, that growth was greater in lizards fed mealworms as compared to crickets. Part of the reason is that the amount of protien available in chitin was grossly underestimated for a long time. It is now known to be as much as 7 times greater than was once estimated....
> 
> ED


Ed, the issue I addressed above was the problem with impaction that some keepers of bearded dragons experienced a few years back. This is the argument of whether not the metabolization of chitin in Pagona vitticeps is possible. I do not doubt the information divulged by the research on Sceloperous lizards, but the fact remains that in the past some bearded dragon users expressed difficulty in using mealworms as feeders with young bearded dragons likely due to incapacity to metabolize chitin. Thus, the issue was that chitin was harmful to young bearded dragons (possibly); this may or may not be the case in dendrobatid husbandry. 


Frankly speaking however, it is much more likely that mechanical error is to blame for the impaction events. I agree with the sentiments expressed here previously; I am simply stating that there may be counter-evidence to the claim that the "chitin issue" is a myth. 

Andy


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## Link3898 (Sep 18, 2008)

so its myth then that meal worms can chew their way out of frogs? huh... i have never fed them to anything that will swallow them whole without cutting the head off first... reason being... when i was 15 i had a pair of green toads (Bufo debilis) that we had caught in south eastern colorado. well we had them for about a week when petsmart ran out of crickets so we gave em meal worms.. the next morning both toads were dead and there were meal worms crawling out of their sides... myth? i duno.... maybe i just had really bad luck that both toads somehow died the same night and the meal worms maybe crawled back out their mouths then began eating on their skin from the outside?? no idea...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

andyrawrs said:


> Ed, the issue I addressed above was the problem with impaction that some keepers of bearded dragons experienced a few years back. This is the argument of whether not the metabolization of chitin in Pagona vitticeps is possible. I do not doubt the information divulged by the research on Sceloperous lizards, but the fact remains that in the past some bearded dragon users expressed difficulty in using mealworms as feeders with young bearded dragons likely due to incapacity to metabolize chitin. Thus, the issue was that chitin was harmful to young bearded dragons (possibly); this may or may not be the case in dendrobatid husbandry.
> 
> 
> Frankly speaking however, it is much more likely that mechanical error is to blame for the impaction events. I agree with the sentiments expressed here previously; I am simply stating that there may be counter-evidence to the claim that the "chitin issue" is a myth.
> ...


Hi Andy,

I don't have access to a pdf of the article I referenced above but here is a link to the abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/zoo.20175/abstract... 

Outside of the study done on Sceloperous, chitin has been shown to be as much as 7 times more digestiable than was once commonly thought in general due to a underestimation of the amount of digestiable protien in the "chitin" portion of the insect. Mealworms actually contain a greater amount of digestiable material than is commonly believed. 

I would have to go back and review the literature but I think I remember a method of impaction due to gastric overload where the animal consumes more food than they can easily handle which can result in impactions. The interesting thing about the Sceloperous study is that the lizards could consume a lower amount of mealworms and achieve a better growth rate than that seen in those fed crickets. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Link3898 said:


> so its myth then that meal worms can chew their way out of frogs? huh... i have never fed them to anything that will swallow them whole without cutting the head off first... reason being... when i was 15 i had a pair of green toads (Bufo debilis) that we had caught in south eastern colorado. well we had them for about a week when petsmart ran out of crickets so we gave em meal worms.. the next morning both toads were dead and there were meal worms crawling out of their sides... myth? i duno.... maybe i just had really bad luck that both toads somehow died the same night and the meal worms maybe crawled back out their mouths then began eating on their skin from the outside?? no idea...


There are multiple potential causes of deaths in animals such as the gastric impaction.. if the toads did not consume all of the mealworms, the leftover mealworms will scavenge the corpses of dead animals. This is where the myth is believed to have started. In several reviews of mealworms, the authors were unable to locate any documented cases of mealworms chewing thier way out of a consuming animal. 

Ed


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## andyrawrs (Aug 16, 2008)

Ed said:


> Hi Andy,
> 
> I don't have access to a pdf of the article I referenced above but here is a link to the abstract The effects of prey species on food conversion efficiency and growth of an insectivorous lizard - Rich - 2008 - Zoo Biology - Wiley Online Library...
> 
> ...


Ed,

I think the research is valid. One would think that primarily insectivorous reptiles & amphibians would evolutionarily be able to synthesize chitin-ase. If I remember correctly chitin is one of those very very large saccharides...it would not make sense for an animal who primarily consumes insects to overlook such an energy-rich compound(s). Ed, do you know how the protein is held-up in the chitin super-saccharide-structure? The more efficient metabolism with Tenebrio molitor in Sceloperous is interesting, and should tie-in with the argument I am making above.

The "mechanical error" I mentioned above refers to impaction due to "gastric overload" or physical incapacity of the GI tract to handle the food material. It's exciting to see this new research being conducted on mealworm and chitin and nutrition in herpetology. My newest reference book in dietary nutrition in lizards is an old copy of Melissa Kaplan's _Iguanas for Dummies_ which only references herbivorous Iguanid nutrition... I feel like this topic is a little bit off-topic from the OP's intentions though 

I feel like I'm even getting off-track with my original argument, which I don't quite remember...

Andy


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## bullseye (May 30, 2010)

very interesting, I'm glad I read your posts as I just fed my geckos mealworms. Do you think they are safe for chameleons?


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

I feed my tincs and auratus the smallest meal worms I can find (<1 cm usually) and although the frogs sometimes have to make several attempts to pick them up, they really seem to go for them. I've never noticed any problems. However, I typically don't feed more than two or three worms per frog at a time.


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## Lance (Sep 8, 2008)

Theres always flour beetle larva. They look just like meal worms just way smaller


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I will always recommend mealworms over rice flour larvae. I made a comment about them infesting my carpet in another post.

The only problem I have with mealworms is trying to separate them from the media when they are young. This isn't a problem if you buy mini mealies, but if you culture them yourself, sometimes the strainer idea doesn't always work well because you pick up frass and other particles with the sifter.


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## Logqan (Sep 24, 2008)

I know this post is old but I use mealworms all the time. I have been culturing them for at least 3 years now and really only used them as a sometimes food for my crested geckos but now I have been using them for everything I can and really feeding my mealworms better. They are so easy to culture and such an asset to my feeding rotation. I do wish they were a little smaller though since it isn't that easy to find small ones but oh well they still work.
Logan


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## charlesg (Oct 18, 2010)

I tried feeding some small meal worms to my frogs but they didn't give them any attention at all. They just want their crickets and fruit flys


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

I wouldn't dismiss the inability to digest chitin as a myth. I have fed ultrasmall soldier fly larvae (`4mm) to my tincs and found them passed whole in their fecals. I've never found a fruit fly or cricket whole in any fecal. Ants are often passed whole and their heads are always undigested.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I don't think there is anyone arguing that chitin is totally digestiable.. the problem is that the digestiabiliy of chitin was underestimated for a long time because the proteins in chitin was underestimated. In insectivores, chitin digestiability has been reported ranging from 0 to 80% digestiable depending on the animal in question. It turns out that as much as 7 times the prior estimates of protein can be recovered by the digesting organism from the chitin. 

One of the things that is also often ignored is the role commensuals play in the breakdown of things like chitin.. as an example, digestiability of chitin is enhanced in a number of animals through the action of oxyurids which help digestion by mechanical actions.


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