Question on eggs and hatching
Question on eggs and hatching
Hi! Sorry, very new at the whole "bugs" thing, and I'm still learning. I spotted this the other day (not sure of the stink bug species, possibly Nezara viridula), promptly spent hours watching macro timelapses of stink bugs hatching, going from gooey babies to hard shelled nymphs...
Now to the question which has been bugging me: is there such a thing as "too late to hatch"? Can they "harden" inside the egg and just die there (maybe in the blackened eggs)?
Thanks!
Edit:
I found another nest of the same species and took it home. So: have a top view of the hatched eggs and some first instar nymphs while I'm at it!
When you see a few black stink bug eggs mixed in among the pale ones like this, it generally indicates a parasitoid wasp has laid an egg inside the bug egg, and the baby wasp has hatched and eaten the bug egg from the inside! So instead of a bug nymph emerging from the black eggs, you would get a wasp emerging. If you're a bug or moth (or most any insect really), you are not safe from parasitoids at any life stage - some wasps attack you in the egg stage, some the nymph/larval stage, and some the pupal stage. Unlike parasites which wanna keep you alive forever to continue to host them, parasitoids just wanna mooch off you a little while and then wanna kill and eat you to finish the job. You probably would hardly notice it if you saw one of the parasitoid wasps, as they can be just a couple millimetres long! There are some nice pics in this blog: https://bugtracks.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/stink-bug-egg-parasitoids/
Stellar explanation, thank you! Those wasps are absurdly cute for creatures born of baby murder, by the way. The link you gave is fantastic, too.
As for "hardly noticing": macro photography fixes that problem, for better or worse (nothing like noticing a parasitic worm coming out of a cricket's butt while reviewing your pictures in full 4k :D ). I take photos of everything even mildly suspicious, just in case.
Ahaha a surprise high def butt worm, what a brilliant way to elevate a cricket portrait 😅
I'm no expert and I hope someone gives you a more satisfactory answer. All I can say is, yes, at any stage in development you can come across a problem that can kill a bug. Many times an egg won't hatch for a variety of reasons, it can be as a consequence of its gestation or perhaps it fell to harsh environment conditions, a fungal infection, or prey to other bugs.
Whether or not the black ones have stillborn bugs I have no idea. If I were in your shoes I'd wait a day and take one to find out if possible.
Thanks! Your answer is already a big help, and pretty instructive!
Unfortunately, I have no boxes for collection ( yet ), or I'd have done a kidnapping. Hopefully I'll find the plant again, or at least a similar bundle.
Ive done heaps of parasitoid wasp rearing and my container of choice is actually just a humble ziplock sandwich bag! Put in your leaf material with the critter you'd like to try to develop, add a paper towel (if you've collected quite dry plant material like eucalpytus leaves or similar, make the towel damp to add humidity, whereas if you've collected very 'juicy' plant material like very green weeds or grass, the towel should be dry to absorb humidity), blow into it to partially inflate, seal it up and keep it somewhere warm and dry and out of the sun and check it regularly until something hatches! For egg parasitoids, you are looking for something extremely tiny flitting around the top of the bag where there is the most light. You might see them emerging in just a few days after you take the sample, or it might take more than a month (and fear not if the plant material starts to look pretty moldy and sad, I've had parasitoid wasps emerge from leaf samples that had gone completely moldy and I had nearly written them off!). Charlie Eismanns blog is also great for tips on rearing out insects. He focuses on ones that live inside leaves (called leafminers), but the principles hold pretty true for other types of insects as well (i used the same techniques for aphids for ex).
This is a little off-topic, but if you are okay with spiders, you might enjoy this video from Dave’s Little Beasties that shows the development of a tarantula (Theraphosa stirmi) from an egg. This is an very large species with very large eggs, so you can really get a good look. I believe Dave does touch on bad eggs briefly here as well.
This is AMAZING! Thank you! Gosh, those translucent jelly babies. Fascinating video (also TIL the "egg" becomes the abdomen, which is really cool).
As an aside, looking at the man's setup, I'm starting to think that bug keeping might just compete with photography in the "bottomless money pit" category. Tell me it isn't so.
I have (so far) been mercifully spared by the photography bug, so I’m not sure where it falls in terms of cost, but keeping inverts can actually be done really cheaply while still providing very good care. Now that I’ve said that…run for your life, lol.
I can’t really speak to insects, but I do keep tarantulas and have really had to set firm bounds on myself. Not just money-wise (because oh, the beautiful terrariums you can build), but also in terms of what I can reasonably care for, what I reasonably have space for, etc. That said, this is probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a hobby. I have two prepping to molt as I type this and I feel like it’s Christmas morning.