Beetle is paralyzed

B

beetl3

Egg
i need a little help to understand this situation, months ago i found an injured burying beetle in my garden, it was missing some of its legs probably due to an encounter with a cat or other animal, i took the beetle in and placed it in a terrarium even tho i had no real experience on how to take care of it, i informed myself on various forums on housing care and feeding and it was going really well, even tho the beetle had restricted mobility he was very active eating, burying under the substrate and occasionally coming out when i placed fruit in the enclosure. Thing is, three months in hes doing fine nothing worrying everything is normal but then all of a sudden i notice that hes moving erratically only to end up on his back completely rigid after some minutes. i thought he was dead but then i noticed he was still moving his mouth, his body is completely paralyzed not reacting to any stimuli except for the occasional twitching of the antennae and mouth, i dont know what happened or what to do he keeps moving his mouth so i think hes still alive even tho completely paralyzed, i wanted to know what happened and why if theres a way to reverse it or if it just means hes old and approaching death

 
Without knowing the species, and in spite of it as well, the beetle is probably expiring from old age. Insects can linger for a long time twitching and flapping

around, when for all intensive purposes, they're dead. I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to euthanasia, sometimes I let them expire naturally, sometimes

I'll put them in my dispatching container, or the freezer.

 
kevink said:
Without knowing the species, and in spite of it as well, the beetle is probably expiring from old age. Insects can linger for a long time twitching and flapping

around, when for all intensive purposes, they're dead. I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to euthanasia, sometimes I let them expire naturally, sometimes

I'll put them in my dispatching container, or the freezer.
Click to expand...
yeah you were right, he expired some days after, i made sure he was as comfortable as possible im gonna miss the guy, after some research i think "he" may have been a female rhynoceros beetle, at least he was able to pass of old age instead of dying because of the lack of legs, thank you for the answer

 
Well, that's the way it is. I keep wild caught beetles when I can, since I'm inept at raising them, normally they find a permanent spot in my collection

after expiring.

 
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