New Pet

Found a nymph Assassin Bug under some bark this winter.  Not sure the species yet but its feeding on Fruit Flies and fattening up quick!

Endless food...

After buying crickets for our Gecko for a while, I decided I needed to have my own self sustaining food source for our Geckos. It get to expeensise and inconvientet to go the store every week for crickets. After researching I found a site that breed amazing Leopard Geckos. Their Geckos are kept on a strict diet of meal worms. So I found a site called sunshinemealworms.com, located in Oregon that sells meal worms. I Ordered 2000 to start my own colony.

Meal worms or Tenebrio molitor are also known as Darkling Beetles or Flour Beetles. Meal Worms are just the larva form of these beetles. There are several similar species available but this is the most common and practical as several 'useful' sized worms are available to use as they grow.

Here is the Meal worms Setup:

The setup was easy. Just get a small tote that is about 7-14 (+) quarts and at least 4 inches tall. Add a few inches of Whole oats, bran, wheat germ, or even Flucker's Cricket Food (gut load). Add a few carrots or apple slices so they have moisture and BAM!, you have a colony. We have 2 of these colonies, both in the same setup with about 1000 Meal Worms in each colony.

The colony is practically odorless, minus the smell of outs and bran, which isn't a bad smell at all. A lid with holes keeps the colony secluded in their own environment. We keep these totes in our furnace room, inside small plastic drawers. Escaping is impossible, no to mention they cant even climb the plastic sides of the totes they are in. The colony will be self sustaining shortly once the mature worms change into pupae, and then again into Darkling beetles, which will then lay eggs, restarting the cycle.

FYI: Meal Worms make great food for birds, reptiles, and even fish.

Housing Scorpions

We decided to keep some through the winter to see how they do. We set up a small 10G tank and set up a habitat. Here are some pics:

Scorpion Hunting Continued

We went on several more scorpion hunting trips before winter hit. We discovered that there are 2 types of scorpions in the area we were hunting:

Northern Scorpion

Paruroctonus boreus

AND

Yellow Ground Scorpion
Vaejovis confusus

Notice that the Norther Scorpion has a larger stinger, claws, and a darker body. The Yellow Ground Scorpion has a darker stinger and skinnier claws. Both are relatively harmless, but have the potential to be fatal. They both glow the same. They live side by side in the High Utah Desert.

During our hunts we came across several Male Desert Tarantulas. I also did not expect to find these because of our harsh winters.

This guy current resides in a jar of alcohol. He is now the largest Arachnid in my collection. I try not to over collect while hunting for bugs. I usually only harvest a few really good specimens of any particular species.

Scorpion Hunting

I was flipping rocks one day while hiking with my dad and managed to find 3 scorpions. I had no idea scorpions would be in this area because it snows heavily in the winter. But where there are 3 there are more...


With the help of my cousin, we built UV LED light mods for our Mag-lights. The lights weren't to complicated to build, and they replaced the original light housing so they were perfect. I would show you a picture of the mod but I think he is going to paten it and try to sell the mods...

Anyways here is the finished product:

In case you are wondering what UV lights have to do with scorpions, THEY GLOW. If you hit a scorpion with UV light it will light up like a glow stick!
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We started the hunt at about 10PM. Things weren't looking so good at first. We wandered around in the dark for about 10 minutes. The only thing that as glowing was paint-ball casings. But it wasnt long before one of the casings was moving slowly along the hillside. We had found our first scorpion! After another 20 minutes of kiking up the mountain, we were finding them almost every few minutes. We ended up catching about 50 scorpions that night all in about 1.5 hours. Not bad!

That one Girl

I met a girl. She liked me and I liked her. So we got married. She is not a huge fan of bugs, especially handling them, but she does like being outside with me and doesn't mind swing a net at anything that flies or jumps.

We like to go on 'Adventures' in the Utah Wilderness. A Good net is a requirement on any hike :)

Goodbye to Florida.

Like I said, I only spent 2 years in Florida. It was a great state. Lots of insects and other creatures crawling around...

Mediterranean Geckos were everywhere! Many where almost see through.

I decided to build a small pond with the small amount of time I had. It attracted many insects and other guests.

And yes there were plenty of these lurking around...


Maybe I will go back and Visit some day...