My surprise this morning

C

charx53

Tenebrio
So, I went to check on my larvae as usual and found that one of them were on the floor. How this happened was I had just a breathable fiber closer material over the container and she chewed through it.

This is my Allomyrina dichotoma larva, who is supposed to be pupating soon. I am almost positive that both the males are in the process, but the females haven't yet.

I moistened her substrate, put her back in, as well as all the covers back on the containers.

The substrate is deep enough, now moist enough.. So we shall see. I'm not sure what else to do for her to make her anymore content.

 
If she continues to display such surfacing behavior then that means she is rejecting the substrate, whether it is unsuitable for her to feed on or unsuitable for her to build a pupal chamber. Have you tried compacting the lower half of the substrate? Sometimes that helps! Hopefully she will be okay and good luck!

 
I have larvae sitting at the top of the substrate too, I didnt realize this meant they didn't like it. I got my substrate from bugsincyberspace and it seems to be fine for some species, but my Chrysina Beyeri always come to the top. Could it not be deep enough possibly? Don't mean to overtake the post I can make a new thread if needed!!

 
Larvae will surface for numerous reasons such as poor sanitation, lack of oxygen, fecal abundance, unsuitable humidity, inadequate depth, refusal to feed on substrate, etc.

When I am setting up their enclosures I like to compact the bottom half of the substrate to trick the larvae into thinking that it's deep enough. Filling the enslosure with substrate all the way up with the lid slightly pressing down also helps. Larvae that are in the wild often burrow deeply into the soil to avoid predators and desiccation so you have to do some DIY to try to recreate that environment.

 
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