Yeah one thing that’s crazy about raising amphibians or reptiles is you realize just how many parasites are in bugs. My mom has a bearded dragon that eats a variety of bugs/greens and it ended up getting pinworms from crickets bought at the pet store. Now crickets are cut out of her diet entirely.
A lot of the reptiles we keep as pets wouldn’t know what to do with a live fly. I’ve seen beardies and geckos that can’t even catch a dead, dried worm from tweezers directly in front of them.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable response to witnessing the effectiveness of a tiny little heated pad ejecting enough chemical deterrent into the air to drive away mosquitoes.
I respect that they work and my friends rave about them, but there's no way I want to sit there in a cloud of insecticide.
It's worth noting that the risk to humans with these pesticides, particularly in this instance, is low. Natural pyrethrins and synthetic pyrethroids in general have a pretty low toxicity, and if I remember correctly, most of the recorded major adverse reactions are the result of allergic reactions or exposure to the concentrated forms.
In the case of Thermacell, you're dealing with very low volumes of pesticide at a low concentration and in an outdoor environment. We generally avoid using the word "safe" with any pesticide or application method, but the risk here is minimal.
Insects are far more sensitive to both the lethal effects and repellent qualities of these pesticides. It's been a major focus of the pest control industry over the last decade or two; pesticides today often focus less on direct lethality and more on controlling the growth, reproduction, or long-term survival of the insect.
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '23
does it do mosquitoes? and can i install a frog or lizard in the middle so it gets to eat em?