Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Are these edible to savannah monitors? It's their season now in FLA.

Anything that brightly coloured is usually a no-go zone. Lubbers apparently do give off a toxin.

I fed all types of grasshoppers, including lubbers and other colorful grasshoppers.

In most cases, they "loved" them for a day or two then ignored them. That included toxic and non toxic grasshoppers.

My bet is, your mole crickets are what your looking for. Give them a go, then report here.

There is no harm in offering any kind of grasshopper. The monitors will let you know if they are tasty or not.

While some folks use the term "Toxic" for colorful grasshoppers, I question that. While in the lab, it sounds great, in the field it does not work that way. They will eat them if their really hungry, they just don't appear to be tasty. Besides, mice are about a million times better for them.

When I lived in Fla, I fed lots of mole crickets to Collard lizards, Leopard lizards and Broadheaded skinks. Best wishes

I do live here in Florida and I have had lizards attempt to eat "lubbers". They chew on them and spit them out because they produce a foul-tasting 'toxin' of some type. That's the only way a giant meaty snack that can barely move nor has any other defenses could make a living. Birds know and lizards learn that they taste like $hit. I've never seen any animal actually follow through and consume one of those Jurassic grasshoppers. Too bad too, they're enormous and easy to collect.

Thats what I am saying, its nasty tasting, its not going to kill them dead.

Of course out here we have different species of lubbers and I mean a whole lot of different species. And they do eat them, not not day after day. hahahahahahahahaha They seem to forget they taste nasty by the next year. Then they remember. hahahahahahahaha

We even have these normal brown species, that are huge and do not fly or jump much, they hop sort of. They do not like them after the first day either.

Katydids and locusts are better, but not like your good old crickets. Cheers