More Mealworm News...

I am 3rd in line to care for the mealworms. Our adventure together began on Thursday January 27, 2011. Sarah and Ashley had observed quite a bit of mold growth in our mealworms' habitat. We concluded that this was likely due to the uneaten apple and lettuce pieces that had accumulated at the bottom of our container, along with condensation build up created by the heat lamp that Sarah had used to expose them to higher temperatures.

On Friday January 28, we sifted out as many live mealworms as we could find from our container, placed them in a separate holding container, and cleaned the mold and mildew out of the bottom. It smelled really stinky! There were many dead mealworms in the container. It is unclear whether this was due to the temperature changes or the mold that had grown. We then placed new sawdust and oats into the container. There were 40+ mealworms remaining that we reintroduced into our sample from the original 100 at this point.

I was very surprised to find that the mealworms ate the oats in their entirety by the next morning. I didn't know if this was because they couldn't eat the ones that had become moldy before, but they were very hungry! I also gave them more lettuce which they sucked dry almost immediately.

The temperature in my apartment varies based on our thermostat. It is on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the coolest and 1 being the warmest. When we are home, we keep it set at an 8. When we are away or go to sleep at night, we typically turn it cooler, all the way down to 10. In my observations of the mealworms, they seemed much more active this week than they have in comparison to what my classmates described they had been. I am not sure if this was due to the warmer temperature that was in my apartment at the times when I observed them (the heat was usually turned up to 8 when I was home to see them) or whether it was due to the fact that I placed their food on top of the sawdust as opposed to underneath it as my classmates had.

I decided on Wednesday February 2, 2011 that I should try a more direct heat source, like Sarah's lamp was, to determine whether or not the mealworms would experience more of a fluctuation in behavior than they had been in my previous observations. I proceeded to heat the underside of the container over the same heat source Sarah used--a lamp. After 5 minutes, I took pictures of where the mealworms were, and noted how active they seemed and where they were gravitating to. Here's what I observed:

This is a bird's eye view of the mealworm's container after introducing them to the heat source. A few of them are barely visible on top, but none were completely uncovered. This was unusual as most of the time when I opened the container, at least one has been eating on the top, completely exposed. Most of the mealworms looked like this:



The mealworms seemed to congregate towards the bottom of the container and towards the sides. It is unclear to me whether this is because of the heat from the lamp or the addition of the stimulus of light, however whichever it was, most of the mealworms seemed to want to be closer to the energy radiating from the lamp.

All that's left to be seen is if Shalyn will find results similar to mine!

**This photo presents some conflicting evidence. It was taken some time after the mealworms had been introduced to the heat from the lamp. Despite the fact that I had added lettuce to the top, none of the mealworms were eating it for water, and still seemed to be gathered towards the bottom of the container.