# what does everyone here that breed pumilio think of jewel wasps



## clarksgeckos (Jun 8, 2014)

I just recently started culturing jewel wasps. I actually have the small species that most people are aware of that come from the biological supply houses butbibstumbled across another larger species that I think many dart frog keepers will really be excited about. Just looking to see what kind of interest people on here has for a supplemental feeder insect more like a ant that is quite easy to culture?


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## aspidites73 (Oct 2, 2012)

You're suggesting we feed a parasitic, venomous, stinging insect to our frogs?


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## FroggyKnight (Mar 14, 2013)

aspidites73 said:


> You're suggesting we feed a parasitic, venomous, stinging insect to our frogs?


That is the exact same thing I thought! I do not like to feed stinging insects to my animals and I cringed every time I fed my desert horned toad (RIP little guy) harvester ants. 

Besides my frogs getting stung, I don't want to be stung! I'm not a fan of that 

John


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## Dev30ils (May 1, 2012)

Don't know anything about these wasps, but would it be possible to remove the stingers before feeding?


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

It's been awhile since these have been discussed, but Patrick at Saurian.net was known to use them...
https://saurian.net/froginfo_pumilio_care.html

I don't know if he still does, but if one of the big commercial breeders was using them for years they are probably OK.


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## clarksgeckos (Jun 8, 2014)

Thank you Dendro Dave. People hear or in this case read wasp and it has to be venomous and stinging. These are parasitizing but not stinging or venomous. They hold a niche in the insect world were they control the numbers of bees, wasps, and flies by laying their eggs on the developing pupae of these insects. The larvae feed on these pupae and emerge as adult wasps. They are fairly quick producing and very easy to culture in good numbers. The ones I am working with are parasitizing blue bottle fly pupae. I think they are going to be a easy nutritious addition to a limited captive diet for small species of dart frog. I will give the scientific name of the smaller species as soon as possible. At work at the moment. I am still trying to determine the exact species I am working with in regards to the larger wasps. Very cool little insect to work with and very excited about there use as feeders.


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## clarksgeckos (Jun 8, 2014)

Unlike a lot of other small feeders these can be dusted before feeding off. Very helpful when trying to get vitamins and minerals into baby pumilio and other very small froglets.


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## jimmy rustles (Mar 10, 2013)

hi

how do you culture them? I just know of Ampulex compressa for vivaria, but I generally thought that they were quite terrestrial, so you`d need a whole viv per pair?

cheers


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Some people have had success culturing pea aphids too. There are some threads about that here too. I personally haven't tried either yet.

Hey Clark you aren't the Tokay gecko guy from Oklahoma are you?


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## zimmerj (Aug 20, 2014)

What do you feed the wasps?


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## clarksgeckos (Jun 8, 2014)

No I don't know who the Oklahoma Clark is. I live in Georgia. As far as feeding the wasps they consume juices from the fly pupae. The wasps are not long lived the whole life cycle would be 3 to 5 weeks depending on temperate. I think that the adult wasps may be able to parasitize more than one group of pupae before they die off. I am culturing them insect deli cups with solid lids and they are given around 20 fly pupae to lay their eggs on. 
I think that the aphids would be a lot more work than these guys and may be too big for new pumilio froglets. I got these wasps because there is no feeder that is being cultured that I am aware of small enough to feed to pumilio and thumbnail froglets that can be dusted to ensure the froglets are getting the dietary supplements they need.


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## DJReptile (Mar 9, 2009)

I would certainly be interested in these. I'm especially curious to try these out with micro geckos like Tropicalotes, Heterenotia, or baby Phelsuma.


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## Raccoon (Mar 11, 2013)

No comments


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

Raccoon said:


> No comments


Completely different genus.

Jewel wasps used to be used/ mentioned frequently, but have fallen out of favor.

The particular genus in question (nasonia) are tiny and specifically parasitize fly larvae. 

James


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## harrisbt (Feb 19, 2013)

Really interested to learn more about the wasps, culturing them, nutritional value, etc. Anything to make my friends think I'm even more weird.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Patrick, at Saurian Enterprises, used to rely almost exclusively on jewell wasps to raise his pumilio babies. I have also use jewell wasps to raise young pumilio, years ago. I believe them to be completely safe for our frogs, but expensive. I know that Patrick did not breed the jewell wasps himself, as he shared his supplier with me years ago. I used the same supplier, though I no longer remember who that was. 
Anyway, I found them to be a very expensive way to raise pumilio. As such, when I got into springtails and isopods, I was excited to discuss them with Patrick, and get some springtails going for him. I know that Patrick uses a lot of springtails for his pumilio babies now. He's partial towards Sinella species (pink springtails). I do NOT know if he still uses jewell wasps or if he has completely replaced them.
My opinion? Safe. Expensive. Dated. Moving on towards free, easy to produce feeders.


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## whitethumb (Feb 5, 2011)

Hey Doug, if you remember, how much work was it to culture them?


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

whitethumb said:


> Hey Doug, if you remember, how much work was it to culture them?


I did not culture them. I don't know anybody who cultured them. Generally, you purchased an order of pupa that had baby jewell wasps about ready to eat their way into the world. You could slow the process down a bit by refrigerating the pupa, but only a bit. You had to have a constant supply of orders coming in. I can't remember if I had orders once a month, or every other week...something like that. It got expensive. You guys that entered the hobby after springtails are the norm, are a bit spoiled! Feeders are cheap and easy now.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

I recall a few old threads on a species/group of jewel wasp that parasitizes Drosophila. That would be ideal-but no suppliers as far as I know. I suspect collecting wild FF pupae from set up baitstations and watching what emerges may prove productive in this regard-wrong time of year though! 

I think people should always keep an open mind regarding new ideas and feeders and not be so quick to blow them off due to a couple stigma containing words and pictures. Some of them truly turn out to be not worth the bother(I remember I encouraged a bunch of people to investigate roaches a few years back-most including myself have since dropped them for various reasons...but I'm happy so many tried)

BTW I think springtails hold at least a little bit of Repashy powder-but since the frogs do not eat them right away it certainly isn't as good as jewel wasps might be. The biggest issue for me with those jewel wasps is the difficulty in constantly obtaining BB fly pupae.

What someone really needs to do is irradiate some fungus gnats and breed flightless fungas gnats...


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## Myrmicinae (Jun 30, 2014)

Dendrobait said:


> What someone really needs to do is irradiate some fungus gnats and breed flightless fungas gnats...


Incidentally, Kyle (Roach Crossing) mentioned recently that he has started breeding a _Puliciphora_ species, also called scuttle flies. They are much smaller than _D. melanogaster_ and the females are wingless. I think that they could turn out to be a very useful feeder, if/when they become available.


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## radiata (Jul 24, 2010)

*Feeder Wasp Cultures*

Doug's reference to Saurian prompted me to check them out again, and lo and behold, they sell feeder wasp cultures!
https://saurian.net/Feeder-Wasps-Small-Batch.html

You can get Blue Bottle Fly Pupae from places like this that sell them to feed Mantids:
Blue Bottle Fly Pupae (100) - Detailed item view - Praying Mantis for sale


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Nasonia is used as a model organism for genetic studies. Some info:
https://www.wardsci.com/www.wardsci.com/images/Working_with_Nasonia.pdf

And a place to obtain some:
https://www.wardsci.com/store/catalog/product.jsp?catalog_number=876753

Would the wasps be worth culturing over springtails? I wouldn't imagine they'd be more nutritious, or smaller? They'd certainly be a much greater pain to culture.


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

So this lab apparently as a whole bank of drosophila-parasitoid wasps, and is potentially a source of them:

schlenke lab home



> We maintain a large number of live strains of parasitoid wasps that infect Drosophila. Our lab policy is to make these
> strains available to everyone once we have published on them. The phylogeny below shows all the strains we currently
> hold, most of which became available with our recent publication on wasp resistance in D. suzukii (Kacsoh and Schlenke
> 2012).





> Wasp collecting
> We collect wasps using standard Drosophila traps, which can be set up in any number of ways (see "Drosophila: A Guide
> to Species Identification and Use" by Markow and O'Grady). Any trap that attracts fruitflies is also likely to attract
> parasitoid wasps looking for Drosophila hosts. Usually we use large tupperware containers with slits on the sides for fly
> ...


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## ZenMonkey (Sep 17, 2013)

Dendrobait said:


> What someone really needs to do is irradiate some fungus gnats and breed flightless fungas gnats...


I don't know, my trio get a lot of exercise and activity going after those guys. Maybe "Turkish glider" flightless gnats?


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Dendro Dave said:


> It's been awhile since these have been discussed, but Patrick at Saurian.net was known to use them...
> https://saurian.net/froginfo_pumilio_care.html
> 
> I don't know if he still does, but if one of the big commercial breeders was using them for years they are probably OK.


I think he does still use them. But if he doesn't, he does SELL them on his website:

https://saurian.net/Feeder-Wasps/


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