[Nhcoll-l] Providing water to dermestids

[Tonya.Haff at csiro.au]

Hello all,

I have a question about looking after a dermestid colony. We have one going along happily at the moment, but we haven't had them for more than a month or two. We place each small carcass we feed them in a takeaway container, to keep specimens separate. Right now we're providing the dermestids with water by giving them cotton wool soaked in water, placed in large bottle caps, which we place in the takeaway container next to the skeleton. This means the larvae don't have to go far to look for something to drink (come to think of it though I'm not sure if it's the larvae or the adults that need to drink, or both). However, these small water supplies also dry out quickly. I'd like to instead have a larger water source, something like a chick water dispenser with cotton wool at the bottom, in the corner of the colony (which is smaller than 1m x 1m), but I'm not sure if this would be detrimental to the larvae. In a nutshell, I guess I'm asking how far a water source for dermestids needs to be from their food source for them to be happy and efficient. Thanks for your thoughts!

Cheers,

Tonya


---------------------------------------------------------
Dr Tonya Haff
Collections Manager
Australian National Wildlife Collection
National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
Canberra, Australia
Phone: (+61) 02 6242 1566 (office)
(+61) 0419 569 109 (mobile)

I am in Thursdays and Fridays
Please call or text my mobile for a fast reponse Monday - Wednesday

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