Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ever since I started feeding Hat crickets, every other day or so I will find cricket heads floating in his water. There are no cricket legs or wings or other cricket sediment that would suggest that he has been munching on crickets in the bath--just heads.

Which leads me to wonder: are cricket heads indigestable? My only explanation is that the heads of the crickets I feed him are not being digested and simply pop out when he is ready to pass them. I am sure it isnt a problem or anything, I just find it very interesting.

The heads are no less digestable than the rest of the body... if they're passing through, you'd find legs and wings too.

Ian

I've had many small turtles eat an entire cricket, but leave the head. If you've ever seen the head fall directly between the upper and lower jaw surfaces, the turtles almost seem to wince when they bite down. I think that the head just feels harder than the rest of the body, and the turtle spits it out. Most of my larger turtles just wolf down the entire cricket, but most of the younger ones will leave the heads behind.

my 3toed female likes the beetle of the meal worm, just when it is fresh and soft. But she never eats the head. Weird to see the still moving head in the feed tray.

>>my 3toed female likes the beetle of the meal worm, just when it is fresh and soft. But she never eats the head. Weird to see the still moving head in the feed tray.

Ok I wasn't sure if anyone else had seen those heads still moving.lol That makes me feel sorry for the crickets when I see it.
My girls eat their crickets in their bathtub & they often do leave heads but they do eat some of them.
I was thinking about this as I watched my giant Charity eat mealworms last night, she's a sloppy eater, there were lots of crumbs left over that fell out of her mouth as she ate them. She left them but then in a little while after walking away from the pile of crumbs she happened to notice that she'd left crumbs so she came back & ate them.
I wonder if leaving cricket heads is simply a matter of not noticing that there are crumbs left over?
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PHRatz