arizonablue

I've got a picture somewhere of my larvae shortly before they pupated, I'll see if I can find it so you can have an idea of the size. Mine pupated for a couple of weeks, although I'm not sure exactly how long it was since I wasn't checking on them too often. A month or less for pupation, I think. The substrate should be moist but not wet. (Squeeze it in your hand and if it clumps a bit but doesn't drip, that's good.) You can give them apple or dog kibble as a supplement but the only thing I gave mine was the leaflitter mix from BIC and they did just fine.

Welcome! What kind of beetles are you interested in?

As DynastinaeLucanidae said, substrate and the proper size containers are really all you need for larvae. Make sure you keep the substrate moist enough. I live in the desert and my substrates tend to dry out quickly, so I empty them out and moisten the substrate every so often, as well as put in some fresh. C. beyeri larvae seem to die off more often than other larvae I've had - I got four and lost two, and they're the only larvae I've had not make it. The two I have left seem to be going strong, though, so maybe they just have a higher dieoff rate before reaching L3?

The mantis molted yesterday morning and is definitely a female! Took another picture, although it's not the easiest task in the world because she's still tiny enough to lose incredibly quickly. (Please ignore horrible chipped nail polish. )

Got a delivery from bugsincyberspace today - a delightful little ghost mantis. I'm not entirely certain yet, but I think it's a male. He chowed down on a fruit fly tonight, and there's another one in his enclosure in case he wants a snack. His abdomen puffed up immediately after he ate the fruit fly, which was weird and awesome to watch. I'll take more pictures as he gets bigger, but here's one for now. He's so tiny even my macro lens had a hard time focusing on him!

You are correct!

All three out now and in great shape. Got out the good camera and got a nice macro shot of one of the beetles.

Beetle number two dug its way out this morning - two down, one to go! Will post more pics once the last beetle is out!

Or at least, it surfaced today! Not sure how long since it emerged from the pupal cell (it took approximately a month to pupate and surface), but tonight I found it on top of the dirt crawling around. It was a dark greenish-brown/black at first, but after I took it out, within about five minutes it dried off and the yellow coloration appeared. It's a gorgeous, perfect beetle, currently exploring its new little tank and stuffing its face with some beetle jelly. This was my first try at raising beetle larvae, and so far it's been a great success! There are two others pupating in the same container, so I imagine they'll be surfacing within a few days too.

Scroll down for M. punctulatus, they're the second one in the article.

I got three of the larvae from Peter and they've been growing like crazy! EDIT: Was wrong on the lifespan, apparently. This source says 2 year lifecycle with adults living 2-4 months. http://www.entohub.com/american-megasoma

Hi, welcome! Check bugsincyberspace.com for larvae and adult beetles, if you haven't already looked there. Peter has Megasoma punctulatus larvae available and has recently had some Dynastes tityus, although it appears those are out of stock at the moment. He also has a good selection of adult beetles.

The other one molted sometime today! It's still very pale in color so I didn't want to handle it, but it appears to have molted without any issues as well.

I checked on my little pair of rhinos tonight, which is easy to do since the tank is so small - I just lift it up and peek at the bottom of the glass to see what they're up to. Tonight I went, "Wait ... you look bigger!" I fished them out and sure enough, one of them has molted! It looks quite round and appears to have molted without any issues whatsoever, so many thanks to Hisserdude for the tip on substrate depth which might have helped the little guy molt correctly. I see no signs of the molt so I assume the roaches ate it. I took a few photos and then popped them back in the tank, so here are some comparison photos of the molted nymph and the one that has yet to molt. There's banding between the segments on that one, though, so it will probably molt quite soon as well. Sorry the photos aren't that great, the lighting in my apartment is terrible at night. I'm very pleased that they seem to be thriving and growing!

Wow, awesome pics! Great job with these guys!

I wouldn't keep them any cooler than room temp - they should be room temp/warm but the heating pad is probably too much. It may be drying out their substrate or making it too hot for them to be comfortable. What do you have them in and why do you think they hate it?

Popped open the container with my three Gymnetis caseyi larvae to freshen up their substrate, and three pupal cells rolled out instead. Oh boy. Guess now I have a bunch of leaflitter substrate for something else! I took a quick picture of one of the cells and then popped them back into the container and covered them up again with the same substrate -- is there anything else I need to do? I think they're done with the turning into a pupa part, as I could sort of hear something solid in there when I moved them. This is my first time raising larvae and my first ones to pupate, so I want to make sure I'm doing everything right. (I'm curious to see the actual pupa but I don't want to risk hurting one by accident by poking around to try and open a cell.) Should I put them in a different container or just let them be so they can do their thing? They pupated within the last three weeks but I'm not sure exactly when so I'm not sure how long it will take them to emerge. Will they crawl to the top immediately or spend time burrowed in the substrate? There's plenty of leaf litter left in there for them to nibble on if they're going to stay buried for a while. I'm so excited! I have two adult flower beetles already so I'm happy to have three more soon and maybe get a little breeding colony going. Thanks for any advice! (Yes, I'm silly and wear gloves to dig around in the dirt, haha.)

I've been trying to be careful and taking care of the flower beetles last so I don't accidentally spread any mites around. Just sent an email off to Kyle to order the springtails, too. For tiny nymphs, yeah, that should be plenty, especially if you supplement the leaves with fruit/jellies/kibble. For larger roaches I don't know. If you were worried about it, Josh's Frogs has oak leaves that you can order online. I have some of those in the oak mix that I've been using and they work great.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm not too worried about the grain mites just yet as I haven't seen them anywhere else besides the flower beetle tank, but anything that's gonna give them some competition is great. Figured I was stuck with the fungus gnats, sigh. They don't bother anything except me, though.

Haven't seen any mites at all! My millipede doesn't have any either, at least that I've seen. I have seen some small white mites in my flower beetle enclosure, but they only seem to nibble on the fruit in there. I have been wanting to get some sort of cleaner crew -- I love the zebra pillbugs on Peter's site but I don't know if they would be useful as a cleaner crew or not. Do you have any suggestions on what to get that would be suitable for all of my tanks? The darklings probably don't need anything because their tank is dry with the exception of one corner. I'd love to put something in with the millipede, the flower beetles, the cave crickets, vinegaroon, and possibly my wolf spider, though, to clean up any food debris or mold, and to potentially eat the eggs of the fungus gnats that so enjoy my millipede tank, haha. I have a fly strip up and they don't really bother the millipede, but they're annoying and I'd rather they didn't get into everything else.

No worries, it was helpful! They tend to stick to the moister side of the tank right now, since when I check on them they're usually holed up together somewhere on that side. The leaves are scattered everywhere, though, so they never have to go very far to find something to nibble on. Glad you mentioned the substrate thing so I could tweak it before their first molt with me -- I'm anticipating it soon, as both of them are starting to look a little stretched -- more light-colored length between the segments on the abdomen. Hopefully one day soon I'll peek in at them and find them a bit larger!

Leave for a little bit and my thread blows up with info on rhino roaches, haha. Mine have been doing great on an oak mix. I put in bits of fruit and dog kibble but for the most part the leaves are what gets nommed on. Thank you for posting the substrate depth info! I knew that it should be shallow, but the height of the nymph was something I hadn't heard, and if that's correct I probably had about three times too much in there. (I had about an inch.) There's now just a very thin layer of cocofiber with leaves on top, as the nymphs are quite flat at the moment, and I changed out their cork bark for one with a little more of a curve for them to hide under. Haven't had too much trouble keeping them moist, since I've got a plastic cover over two-thirds of the mesh lid, and as long as I mist them nightly it stays pretty moist. The tank is quite a small one at the moment (10x6x6) since they're so teensy, but as they get larger I'll be moving them into a tank with more floor space.

I got a couple decent shots of the vinegaroon's underside while it was burrowing (apparently my cork bark log idea is slightly less than ideal although it's still spending a lot of time in it), and I was hoping someone can help me figure out if it's male or female. This is the picture I was using as a guide, and to me it still looks closer to the female illustration. Anybody with more experience have some input? Thanks!

The vinegaroon got his (gonna assume it's a male, thanks to the previous advice) tank upgrade. I buried a hollow log in the substrate for him to hide in, which he seems to love. He's been spending all of his time inside of it and hasn't been digging at all, so presumably it's the perfect burrow. Well, perfect except for the occasional light at the end of the tunnel ... I pushed the log right up against the glass and taped a piece of thick cardstock paper on the glass. The burrow is pitch-dark for him with the "door" shut, but if I want to peek in to see how he's doing or show him off, I don't have to fish him out of his house.

Thanks, it very well might be! The underside looked similar to a female on an illustration I found, but this is my first vinegaroon so I have zero experience looking up their skirts.