Hello! I'm very much new here, so please excuse me if it's not proper etiquette to ask for help immediately, but I've recently acquired what I think is a female Calosoma scrutator and I am completely lost. When she was given to me, the person who brought her to me assumed she was dead. She turned out to be very much alive and I would love it if she would stay that way. Unfortunately, I have no experience in keeping beetles. Has anyone successfully kept one of these beetles? I'm a bit worried about releasing her because she seems a bit weak and has a messed up wing. Should I release her anyways? She's currently in a tank with about an inch of substrate ("Creature soil"), a thin layer of sterile leaf litter, and some cork bark I found at a pet store near me. I have been trying to keep the substrate a bit moist by misting it because I read somewhere that they prefer it that way. Any advice at all would be appreciated, about the specific species or about any ground beetle.
Please help with a Calosoma scrutator
- Thread starter Wolfdran1
- Start date
Eduardo
Pupa
Hello! Luckily fiery searchers are quite easy to keep alive as adults, given the goal isn’t to breed them. They can be fed mealworms, small crickets, and small roaches which they will hunt down, and I’ve kept them in moisture gradients with more surface area than depth. I think your setup sounds good, they can live for quite a few months but yours might be older. Good luck!