Anybody who has a bearded dragon as a pet knows how much they love to hunt. It’s not uncommon to find their enclosure littered with crunched up bugs, mice and even small reptiles.
Unfortunately, they will often eat smaller animals that make their way into the enclosure or are offered as treats.
So, can bearded dragons eat daddy long legs? No, bearded dragons cannot eat daddy long legs.
Indeed, daddy long legs are arachnids, not insects.
They look like spider legs but with longer appendages and thinner ends instead of pinchers.
Is it true that Daddy Long Legs are poisonous?
Contrary to popular belief, daddy long legs are not poisonous. Indeed, Spider Research [1] reports that daddy long legs don’t have any venom glands, fangs or other mechanism to chemically subdue their food.
What if my bearded dragon eats a daddy long legs?
As we mentioned earlier, it’s not recommended to feed daddy long legs to your pet. Despite your best efforts there maybe cases where you beardie may accidently eat them.
Don’t panic when this happens. These arachnids are not poisonous. Just monitor your bearded dragon. Many users have reported similar incidents on reptile forums [2] with their pet and there were no health issues as a result of eating daddy long legs.
What bugs can you feed your bearded dragon?
As you may already know, bearded dragons are omnivores. Some commons bugs you can feed them include but not limited to earthworms, cockroaches, silkworms, crickets. This list is non exhaustive.
Summary
Although daddy long legs are not poisonous, it’s not a good idea to feed them to your bearded dragon.
Instead, opt for fresh fruit, vegetables or other live feed such as crickets and dubia roaches.
Resources
[1] Possible envenomation of daddy long legs
https://spiders.ucr.edu/daddy-long-leg
[2] Daddy long legs
https://www.reptileforums.co.uk/threads/daddy-long-legs.587082/
My name is Brad and I am the main editor of BeardieZilla.com.
The only goal of this site is quite simply to be able to help you. To help you by the means of my experiment, of the relation which I maintain with my bearded dragon as well as some of my knowledge about beardies.
I hope that you will find answers to some of your most pressing questions here.
Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the blog!
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