Deformed Darkling Beetle
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:08 pm
Just found this interesting, and thought I’d share it; a while back (early 2020) I decided to keep a few mealworm pupae that we unexpectedly got when we left the mealworms out of the fridge too long. It was an interesting experience, and I learned a lot more than Google would have told me from it. I had no idea the developed legs a couple days before becoming a full beetle!
The first one that finished the transformation was alert and moving well; which was interesting because it’s back still looked partway like a pupa! We named it Nemo and gave it its own little house made out of a medium sized container (it was ACTUALLY a mansion, by beetle standards). Pretty quick after I put it in it buried itself in the Eco Earth, which we had given it about an inch and a half of (we didn’t know what they acted like, so better to give it the option to burrow). It was tunneled right up against the side, which was cool because I got to watch Nemo do darkling beetle things.
It survived a couple days; exploring its habitat and using the little paper cup hides I had given it. It was a bummer to check on it on (roughly) day three and find it dead, but I had kept myself from getting too attached by guessing it wasn’t really going to live all that long. It’s back was the exactly the same for its entire life as a beetle; never got better or worse. Nemo was a cool little bug, and I thought I’d share about it to see if anyone else had had any experience with a beetle being deformed?
Looking back it was probably banged around or smushed too much as a mealworm or pupa, so it was probably on us that it came out that way.
Here’s what Nemo looked like, if anyone was curious.
The first one that finished the transformation was alert and moving well; which was interesting because it’s back still looked partway like a pupa! We named it Nemo and gave it its own little house made out of a medium sized container (it was ACTUALLY a mansion, by beetle standards). Pretty quick after I put it in it buried itself in the Eco Earth, which we had given it about an inch and a half of (we didn’t know what they acted like, so better to give it the option to burrow). It was tunneled right up against the side, which was cool because I got to watch Nemo do darkling beetle things.
It survived a couple days; exploring its habitat and using the little paper cup hides I had given it. It was a bummer to check on it on (roughly) day three and find it dead, but I had kept myself from getting too attached by guessing it wasn’t really going to live all that long. It’s back was the exactly the same for its entire life as a beetle; never got better or worse. Nemo was a cool little bug, and I thought I’d share about it to see if anyone else had had any experience with a beetle being deformed?
Looking back it was probably banged around or smushed too much as a mealworm or pupa, so it was probably on us that it came out that way.
Here’s what Nemo looked like, if anyone was curious.