Reptile & Amphibian Forums

greetings -

i have never posted on this before. so by way of introduction, i am currently beholden to a 5 month juvie blue bar ambilobe, azumah. i purchased him from Jim F. at The Chameleon Company a few months ago. his sire is Lamotta and his maternal grandfather is Anubis. he is coming along nicely, showing good color, and is now about 6 inches snout to vent, 13 1/2" total. i've kept lots of lizards in the past, but this is my first panther...

i was wondering if i should feed azumah a tomato hornworm that has pupated and turned into a moth? it is strange that in all the stuff i've read about feeding hornworms, nothing says anything about feeding the moths. the large and scaley wings are probably too much for him, but i could remove those. but other than size, are they any other physiological concerns of feeding the moth? i haven't let the moth out or anything, so he has not ate any potentially toxic plants or anything...

any and all advice welcome!

all the best,
steve

Hello Steve and welcome to you and Azumah (love the name and spelling - if it's a name I should "know" forgive me !)

As for your moth... I assume you are referring to a tomato or tobacco hornworm? There are many species, with some being safer than others. Eastern Forest Hornworms

First, please do not "remove the wings" If for some reason your cham decided it did not want it you now have a living, suffering moth (hey, you'll get to know me and especially my personal stand on certain moths . It is also not necessary, for an appropriate size cham, but if the ambilobe grow at the same rate as nosy be's I would not suggest feeding it. I have a 5 month old NB and - even though he will never be fed a sphinx moth -I would not give him one of that size, yet.

Second, if you reared this on artificial food and brought to pupation it would be safe, toxicity wise, but if the larva was reared on tomato (potato, etc.) plant, then no, it would not be safe. Unsure as to how much of the glycosides (toxins in Solanaceae family of plants) are in the adult moth but not worth the risk.

For future reference, if you ever catch a sphinx moth at lights at night it was, obviously, fed on tomato, etc. plants, but also keep in mind that they nectar on some toxic plants such as Datura (aka: jimson weed, thorn apple).

Depending on where you live, most small to medium size moths that you catch at lights this time of year are safe to feed to them. Nature's rule of thumb is orange and/or orange(or red) & black coloration are warning signs meaning "stay away" - you will notice that this species of sphinx has orange markings on its abdomen.

Not sure if you read the article on chameleonnews.com on hornworms but it is pretty comprehensive - if you have/do read it you will also understand my connection to these beauties

lele
hornworms

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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan for now
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

thanks for the reply lele. azumah is named after the great featherweight boxing champion from ghana, azumah nelson (i am a part time boxing coach, and nelson was one of my favorite fighters of the late 80's through 90's.)

yes, i did read your article on hornedworms. and learned much from it. sorry if i missed where you talked about feeding the moths, but i didn't see it in there. this guy came from Mulberry Farms, originally, and has only eaten their chow. so i know he would not be toxic based on what the moth has ingested. so mostly i was concerend that they might produce a toxin in the moth stage, since nowhere seems to recommend feeding the moths to chams.

azumah is big for his age. nearly 7 inches snout to vent, so sans wings, i think he could handle the moth. he has eaten pinky mice twice now with no trouble...

i understand your reservations about removing wings. i'm no sadist. but i'm not thinking of this bug as a pet, but as food. he is pretty, but then so are they in the worm form. since i can't release it, nor have any desire to keep it as a pet, this seemed a reasonable option. i don't think there are moth adoption programs, but if you want to arrange something...

once i figure out how to do it, i'll try to post a pic of azumah. i'm quite proud of him.

steve

azumah is named after the great featherweight boxing champion from ghana, azumah nelson (i am a part time boxing coach, and nelson was one of my favorite fighters of the late 80's through 90's.)....
I am out of touch when it comes to most sports figures, current "pop" music and movie celebs and a few others. I think sometimes the youngin's here are amazed that us "old folk" (I speak of myself) have no idea who "so&so" is. I certainly would not have made the boxing connection !

yes, i did read your article on hornedworms. and learned much from it. sorry if i missed where you talked about feeding the moths, but i didn't see it in there.
did not mean to imply that I did cover feeding the moth - just sort of avoided it due to the story about Toby.

this guy came from Mulberry Farms, originally, and has only eaten their chow. so i know he would not be toxic based on what the moth has ingested. so mostly i was concerend that they might produce a toxin in the moth stage,

No, there would not be any new toxin in it body. Keep in mind if you have never fed a large or newly emerged moth they will often "squirt" a fluid from their abdomen. Some of it is left over cocoonase, which helps release them from cocoon (breaks down silk, which is not the case with the sphinx) and some is in defense. Either way it is harmless, but can sure be a surprise if the predator grabs it butt first! lol! I actually had a snoopy cat poking around a cage of newly eclosed polyphemus moths, well, she put her nose right up to the screen and got a faceful - it was pretty funny (I knew it would not herut her).

azumah is big for his age. nearly 7 inches snout to vent, so sans wings, i think he could handle the moth. he has eaten pinky mice twice now with no trouble...

yes, probably

>>i understand your reservations about removing wings. i'm no sadist. but i'm not thinking of this bug as a pet, but as food. he is pretty, but then so are they in the worm form. since i can't release it, nor have any desire to keep it as a pet, this seemed a reasonable option. i don't think there are moth adoption programs, but if you want to arrange something...

lol! Yeah, I am a bit of the oddball when it comes to Leps, but it is because they are (one of my) my passion

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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan for now
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet