Is my eastern Hercules beetle larva okay?

[jaccob]

I've had an eastern Hercules beetle larva since roughly September when I found one while working on my insect collection for entomology and my professor said I could try raising it as a fun little project. I have no idea how old it is, its sex, etc. but I've housed it in one of those portable plastic travel fish tanks with soil and rotting bark from around where I found it. I have seen it eating so I know it likes the bark I collected. Every so often, I dampen the top soil a little bit, add some more bark, and dig around to check on the larva because I go a while without seeing it, so I'm curious to see how it's doing. It's usually curled up in the same spot, which I've learned is a good thing and means it likes the conditions there. Tonight, it looked like this. Very tightly curled up (much tighter than normal), barely responded to touch. There was still some response, but it was very slow and it hardly uncurled. Its body felt hard. I haven't changed its conditions at all recently. Is my beetle okay? 

 

[arizonablue]

Visually, it looks fine, and in my experience a firm larvae is a hell of a lot better than a squashy, limp one. (Those die.) If it is particularly cold where the beetle is kept, it may be simply overwintering and conserving its energy. If it is particularly warm, it may be going to pupate in the dead of winter, LOL. 

If it's been doing well and eating, I'd just leave it alone. If it isn't healthy, in my experience there isn't much you can do except cross your fingers.

 

[jaccob]

Visually, it looks fine, and in my experience a firm larvae is a hell of a lot better than a squashy, limp one. (Those die.) If it is particularly cold where the beetle is kept, it may be simply overwintering and conserving its energy. If it is particularly warm, it may be going to pupate in the dead of winter, LOL. 

If it's been doing well and eating, I'd just leave it alone. If it isn't healthy, in my experience there isn't much you can do except cross your fingers.

As far as I know, it's still eating. And I hadn't considered temperature leading to early pupation. It's a hell of a lot warmer where it's been living inside than it is outside. We're talking a difference of it can be below freezing outside, it's snowed, it's below freezing right now actually, and it's obviously nowhere near freezing inside. 

 

[jaccob]

Update: Since about a month ago, Max looks even smaller and more shriveled up. Still not moving much at all when touched, perhaps even less now. 

 

[Bugboy3092]

It looks like its sadly probably a goner, I don’t really know what would have caused it to die if the conditions were fine, you might have just been unlucky here.