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Wednesday 21 September 2016

Flour Beetles in My Turtle's Food

I usually feed my turtles by taking a half-handful amount in my hand and sprinkling it out to them, but at this time, I saw that there were wiggly things in the water. When I checked the turtle's food bottle, I discovered flour beetle insects and larvaes. (Since then I used a spoon to feed my turtles.)

Here is a short summary of them:

Flour beetles (Tribolium confusum and T. castaneum) are 3/16 inch long, reddish-brown, and elongate oval in shape. Larvae are cylindrical, whitish, or cream-colored and up to 1/4 inch long and have two small pointed spines on the tail end (the larvae are not usually noticed by residents). Two species of flour beetles may be found: red flour beetles are common in homes and the confused flour beetle is a frequent pest in flour mills. Flour beetles infest many types of dried food products, such as flour, bran, cereal products, dried fruits, nuts, and chocolate. (I get it from here).
Here are the pictures:
The larvaes in my turtle's food.
The larvae is on the left, the adult one on the right. They both were compared to an average key size.

We suspect that this was either part of
the nest or a cocoon.

Ants taking the larvaes.

Only, the ants had difficulty doing it,
as the larvaes attack back, and the ants often failed.

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