Report of Health Problems Related to Mealworms

Dave Weldon

Dave Weldon

Avid Member
Howdy All,

Although not many of us use mealworms as feeders, a fellow chameleon keeper brought this Gecko Forum posting to my attention and I thought I'd share it just in case someone here is seeing this problem too.

The thread has over 200 posts in it so I mostly skimmed through it. Many leopard gecko breeders have recently noticed a decline in egg production, eggs that won't hatch, hatchlings that fail to thrive or are born with defects etc. The common link was tied to mealworms. Addtional discussion and some research among the community speculated that it might be caused by everything from mealworm inbreeding to mold to pesticides. The bottom line seems to be to stay away from mealworms for now until this episode is cleared-up.

The entire thread: http://www.geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=23998

A couple of interesting posts:
http://www.geckoforums.net/showpost.php?p=230663&postcount=173

http://www.geckoforums.net/showpost.php?p=235835&postcount=195
 
Good Information

Dave,
That's great information, but most of us on the forum refrain from using mealworms, or encourage others to not use them.

I'm a superworm lover, and stand by them as a great feeder.
From time to time they do get a little on the stinky side, but it's not nearly as bad as crickets.
Change the bedding every few weeks, and toss in some fruits and vegetables every other day.
They are incredibly easy to gutload, and you can keep a lot in a small rubbermaid.
Remember, super mealworms are given hormones to increase size, so that could be a possible cause for low fertility and birth defects.

Thats my two cents
~Justin
 
Justin Carl said:
I'm a superworm lover, and stand by them as a great feeder.

~Justin
Click to expand...
(It is my understanding that superworms are raised with the exact same bedding and food that mealworms are raised on. I am not suggesting that the mealworms this season were bad (we saw no evidence of that). All I'm saying is that if you think there was a problem with the mealworms, I would think that you would be having the same problem with the superworms. You are what you eat, so, in terms of any pesticides, mold, etc. superworms should be the same as mealworms.)
So please keep your eyes open, and watch for any changes. My female panthers go crazy for a super, every now and than. Have'nt heard of any problems with the supers, but waxworms were failing not to long ago. And can't help but think the two are somehow related.
 
Thanks for the heads-up.

I do raise mealworms (and kingworms aka superworms) to feed, sparingly, to my chameleons and mantids. More for variety - my chameleons are spoiled with a different feeder at every meal, and I try not to repeat any one feeder for a couple days. Why is it people do not recommend mealworms (beyond this current issue)? Is it to do with their low nutritional value? Digestibility?
 
thanks for the info Dave :) is that just the super mealworms or the regular ones too? I dont ever use them, but just out of curiosity...
 
Umm, err, I might be able to confirm a problem with supers. Dave's been doing fecals on my parasite infested cham for months. He keeps seeing odd things he never saw before. I thought it was from a supplement.

Then I took another sample from a different cham to him. He had done a fecal just a couple months ago and it was completely clean. This time aside from a minor pinworm problem he too suddenly had these strange objects appearing in the float. This drove me crazy as I never gave that supplement to this particular Cham.

HOWEVER, I had started feeding him supers in between the time of those two fecals. The previous infested Cham only eats supers right now.

Steve may be right....
 
Howdy Superworm Users,

If I recall correctly, the mealworm thread confirmed that superworms were not affected. In fact, many of the gecko breeders switched to superworms after the mealworm problem was identified and saw improvements in their breeders. As far as super mealworms go, I don't recall if any trouble was linked to them or not.

Luckykarma, I don't think those mysterious float findings that we found in your samples were related to a diet having superworms in it. I say this only because I continue to do floats of my chameleons, who get superworms too, and have never found anything like what we found in your samples :eek:. Nice try though :D.
 
Thanks for the heads up. The superworms and how they are given hormones also...I never thought of that. Thanks again.

David
 
Howdy,

For anyone not familiar with the difference between superworms and super mealworms... A super mealworm is a regular mealworm that is given some kind of hormone that keeps them growing whereas a superworm is a different species of bettle larva altogether (Zophobas Morio).
 
davider said:
Thanks for the heads up. The superworms and how they are given hormones also...I never thought of that. Thanks again.

David
Click to expand...

Hey Davider,

I think you got a bit confused with some of the naming.
Zophobas (King Worms / SuperWorms) are not given hormones. Giant Mealworms are.
 
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