I was thinking of various ideas relating to crickets and
their microbiomes. Specifically, in their digestive tract. Many people are
lactose intolerant, so I'm assuming crickets haven't evolved an efficient way
to break down dairy products. But what if they ingested bacteria that could?
Could the bacteria survive within the cricket? Would the crickets that were fed
diary and had the beneficial bacteria thrive more than those without the
bacteria that ate dairy? Also, how would the crickets that never dairy at all
do compared with the ones that did? I'm not sure if this is a practical
experiment yet, but we'll see.
I also noticed in reading some anecdotal reports that bearded
dragons could be fed yogurt and not have any ill-effects. I wonder if any
creature that doesn’t normally have enzymes to digest lactose and related
proteins could acquire certain bacteria that could and live relatively well. Lifespan
and activity level might be good variables that would be affected by their
diary diet.
At the moment, I’m simply trying to find a good way to collect
bacteria samples from a very small cricket without creating a huge mess. I’ve
literally streaked the plate with a cricket, embedded a cricket into agar, and
finally used peptone to separate the cricket into a solution that was distributed
onto a TSA plate.
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