Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was cleaning my snake cages as usual today. Usually I take the hide and water bowl out, change the newspaper, and replace the hide and water bowl (with clean water). There's usually no reason to inspect the hide, but today I was going to do a thorough cleaning on everything and I found these bugs inside the hide!! They all look like they're dead but I'm still really worried! Does anyone know what they are?? I didn't find them anywhere else, but they are in the cage of a snake that I've been treating for a nose rub for a little while. I'm wondering if they are the cause? Also, another of my snakes looks like she's getting a nose rub now too.

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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

Hard to tell, but they almost look like moth larvae/pupae. I've seen a few of those under boxes in a closet awhile back.

I assume they are not on the snake? So probably not ticks. Is the cage made out of wood?
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Mark

Nope, they're not on the snake. The cage is made of plastic, the wood in the picture is the floor of the room the cages are in.
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

Those look like some kind of egg or larva casing that have hatched....may want to look around some more.
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Joel Thomas

Don't tread on me!

thats really weird because i just found what looks to be the same thing in my snakes cage.. I thought they may have come from his fecal as that is what they were on and near. Im getting a fecal done on him soon.
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"If you talk to animals,
they will talk with you
and you will know each other.

If you do not talk to them,
you will not know them,
and what you do not know
you will fear.

What one fears,
one destroys."
.

-Chief Dan George

I found them attached all over the inside of his hide. It's an exo-terra hide exactly like this one:

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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

You could post the pic's on an invertabrate forum and I bet someone would know
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Joel Thomas

Don't tread on me!

n/p
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

Those look like bed bugs to me....... they get into everything... and feed on animal and human blood... if you have these you probably need to hire a professional exterminator.... they feed on you while you sleep

I am currently leading a major research project on bed bugs and can say for sure they are not bed bugs.

Are you noticing small flies in your reptile room?
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Dr Warren Booth / Director USARK
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology

Whew, I'm glad they're not bed bugs lol! Um, yes I did notice some small flies in the house last week. I haven't seen any this week though. And I think they may have even been a little smaller than whatever this is. Would that be possible for the fly to be smaller than these pupae things?
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

I think that bed bugs are very tiny and those pic's are highly magnified. The bugs or the casings that Rachel showed appear much larger.

I have been wrong many times before so please correct me if I am here
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Joel Thomas

Don't tread on me!

Bed bugs are actually quite big. They are just a bit smaller than a tick as adults.
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Dr Warren Booth / Director USARK
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology

Looks like some sort of flying bug larvae casing.

Have you noticed any larvea in fecal matter? or any flying bugs in the room. Or fecal that looks tore up or decomposed?
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
36.51 BRB
29.42 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Um, I do remember seeing some stool that was pretty dried out (maybe decomposed?) and did see some flying insects last week. But, I think the insects were smaller than these larvae.
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

I think it's the larvael case (?) that some sort of fly / gnat emerges from. I don't believe it targets reptiles, it just found conditions that were good for it. Again, that's my bet, it isn't a sure thing.
A good place to ask is whatsthatbug dot com

Andy

.
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Those are casings from fly larvae.

you need to keep the snakes cleaner and drier they are attracted to feces and humidity and if you don't keep up on the empty beer cans them too LOL...I have not had them in years.....more frequent cleaning of cages and cage items is in order and they will go away also a few of those sticky fly catchers u can buy at home depot in the snake room won't hurt.

Those castings are definitely the "empty shell of the hatchling larvae if you caught it earlier you would have seen the little maggots. You need to clean more often. Most of us have been thru the fly stage of our husbandry at one time or another!!!!
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

>>you need to keep the snakes cleaner and drier they are attracted to feces and humidity and if you don't keep up on the empty beer cans them too LOL...I have not had them in years.....more frequent cleaning of cages and cage items is in order and they will go away also a few of those sticky fly catchers u can buy at home depot in the snake room won't hurt.
>>
>>Those castings are definitely the "empty shell of the hatchling larvae if you caught it earlier you would have seen the little maggots. You need to clean more often. Most of us have been thru the fly stage of our husbandry at one time or another!!!!
>>-----
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Frank Roberts
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

The most easily recognized feature (seen with the naked eye) is the habit of the adult Phorid fly running rapidly across surfaces instead of immediately flying when disturbed. Most flies immediately take flight.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

some person on kingsnake has one of those flies in their signature and once had me swatting my computer screen in "disgust" of their appearance LMAO
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

I appreciate all of the info. Looks like I need to keep up on my cleaning!
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

You may still have them around. I had never seen them until I moved to Florida. Every summer they get worse. They breed like mites lol the hotter the better. You just need to keep everything really dry for a while and make sure they dont breed anywhere. Although they will breed in your sink, bathrooms, cupboards, trash outside, everywhere. I have cleaned super clean homes on the beach and see them in the house.

As far as my resaerch went on them. They are an introduced species here in Florida. They are from South America and supposedly will kill fire ants by laying their eggs in the nest and then eating them. Some professor thought... hey we should import these in large numbers and rid florida of fire ants (thus seeing that florida purposely releases animals to control others hmm hmm burmese pythons to control pigs in the everglades?...just saying conspiracy theory) anyway they let them go in central florida and guess what? They would rather eat trash then fire ants so the experiment failed and we now have these flies here. They are a problem in hospitals where they lay eggs in open wounds, sores etc. they got the name crypt flies because they will look for dead things to eat. Any way they are a pain but you just need to keep ontop of things.
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