My leaf insects have just started to lay eggs at last so I thought I would show you what to look out for when cleaning them out.
Leaf insect eggs are small and don’t look particularly special so it would be easy to throw them away when cleaning out your leaf insects. Female leaf insects also typically lay their eggs wherever they happen to be sitting and so these eggs typically fall to the floor of the cage with all the faecal material.
However closer inspection shows that these eggs are rather different in appearance to leaf insect faeces and once you have made the distinction it is reasonably easy to spot eggs in your regular cleaning duties.
Whilst obviously the faecal material should be thrown away, the eggs should be carefully removed so they can be incubated separately and cared for properly.
One final note worth mentioning is the interesting effect of humidity on leaf insect eggs. When the eggs are dry they typically look like small “tear-drop” shaped objects in variable brown colours.
Interestingly though when these eggs are kept moist, they absorb some of the humidity and small projections become apparent on the surface of the eggs. They change in appearance right before your eyes which is not only fascinating to observe, but also makes life easier if you’re struggling to decide if the humidity is high enough while incubating your leaf insect eggs.
Note the eggs on the right-hand side of the photo below which shows these small projections.
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