poetacorvi
Egg
Hi! I’m rearing a handful of Embaphion glabrums, and one of them unfortunately had some issue molting to adulthood and has severely deformed elytras (+ deformed leg).
Morning of two days ago found him newly emerged, he was extremely low energy (I could barely get enough of a reaction to tell he was alive), and I expected he would pass shortly, but 24h later hes perked up a lot.
As you can see in the media, the ends of his elytras somehow folded themselves underneath him. Additionally the shed exoskeleton somehow was looped around the leg and then caught on the elytra end, trapping the leg at a very odd angle while the exoskeleton hardened, so that leg is pretty messed up. Have removed that shed molt now atleast.
Right now I feel like his quality of life would be extremely low, to the point where I’m considering euthanizing him. While he can walk somewhat, he is constantly tripping over himself even on a flat surface. However I feel like if I could somehow remove the ends of the elytras that are folded under him (and potentially part of the malformed leg depending on how much that also affects mobility), it would allow for much easier movement and he could live a somewhat decent life.
Main issue is figuring out how to properly secure/subdue the beetle. I looked into methods beetle studies used to surgically remove elytras from live beetles safely, I have the proper scissors but they all seem to use CO2 to anesthetize the beetles, and I don’t have access to the equipment needed for that. The beetle is small and high energy so theres no way to do it safely without somehow getting him anesthetized, but I’m not sure what the safest method is that I have access to. Any tips would be very appreciated!!!
Morning of two days ago found him newly emerged, he was extremely low energy (I could barely get enough of a reaction to tell he was alive), and I expected he would pass shortly, but 24h later hes perked up a lot.
As you can see in the media, the ends of his elytras somehow folded themselves underneath him. Additionally the shed exoskeleton somehow was looped around the leg and then caught on the elytra end, trapping the leg at a very odd angle while the exoskeleton hardened, so that leg is pretty messed up. Have removed that shed molt now atleast.
Right now I feel like his quality of life would be extremely low, to the point where I’m considering euthanizing him. While he can walk somewhat, he is constantly tripping over himself even on a flat surface. However I feel like if I could somehow remove the ends of the elytras that are folded under him (and potentially part of the malformed leg depending on how much that also affects mobility), it would allow for much easier movement and he could live a somewhat decent life.
Main issue is figuring out how to properly secure/subdue the beetle. I looked into methods beetle studies used to surgically remove elytras from live beetles safely, I have the proper scissors but they all seem to use CO2 to anesthetize the beetles, and I don’t have access to the equipment needed for that. The beetle is small and high energy so theres no way to do it safely without somehow getting him anesthetized, but I’m not sure what the safest method is that I have access to. Any tips would be very appreciated!!!