Wingless Fruit Flies

I have been feeding a brood of baby C. vits (striped bark scorps) wingless fruit flies. I have them in a large Critter Keeper. I tried putting a thick smear of Vasoline around the inside top of the cage but the little flies just walked over it like it was nothing. Then I tried a layer of double sticky side Scotch tape around the top thinking they surely can't walk over that -- they can.

I solved the problem of the fruit flies crawling out of the Critter Keeper by putting a sheet of paper towels over the top of the clear plastic bottom part of the cage and closing the lid over the paper towels. This seems to be keeping the little flies in the cage.

Cool you can also feed cricket parts too since it has a lot more nutrition than fruit flies

Good idea. I'll do both.

Also, I should have called this thread "Flightless Fruit Flies." I think they do have wings but they don't fly.

You can also give roaches that have been cut up into smaller pieces. My smaller scorpion slings eat pieces of turkistan roaches readily.

I find it interesting that slings will eat pieces of prey. That would seem to prove that they can "smell" prey in addition to sense movement.

I think its also "touch" based because they will jump back when they touch the roach parts and then they become interested in the food and will approach the food item again and "feel" it and then find the appropriate spot to start eating but this is only what I have observed.

Interesting. Maybe their little hairs react to the insect guts. I wonder how often a grown scorp will scavange dead prey?

That question Im not so sure of but I do sometimes head crush roaches for my communal setups and I would say that about 70% of them get eaten.
Here are a few slings eating the back piece of a B.lateralis nymph.

Thanks for the info, definately good to know!

I was just at a local pet store and found out that there are different species of flightless fruit flies available for feeders. Some are much larger than others. When feeding scorplings fruit flies it may pay to choose the correct size fly.

Wingless Drosophila Melanogaster fruit flies have a shorter life cycle than D. Hydei, but are far more prolific. This is the smallest species of fruit fly we carry (1/16"), making them perfect for many species of fish, reptiles, birds, insects and amphibians.

Flightless Drosophila Hydei fruit flies have a longer life cycle, and will produce flies for up to 28 days. This is the largest species of fruit fly we carry (1/8"), making them perfect for many species of fish, reptiles and birds.

Information from http://snailtail.com/index.html