Reptile & Amphibian Forums

do the fully mature beetles bite or fly?

is the substrate that they are shipped in the food source for them? (particularly armstrong's), fe. wheat, bran, cornmeal

for moisture is a piece of carrot suffiecient, it seems so insignificant to me

thanks guys

p.s. also as an additional feeder question: i find that mealies take awhile to warm up and get "active", is there a faster way to warm them up to get them to be more wriggly?

The adult beetles have wings but don't fly. They also don't bite.

The carrot is fine for moistrure. You have to be careful not to put in too much vegatable matter or you will get mold. I use 1/4 of a carrot or potato and replace it from time to time to keep it fresh and cut down on the moisture in the substrate itself.

I try to keep my breeding colony at around 80 to 85 degrees. The larve and adults seem pretty active at that temp.
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Wade's Weptiles & Wodents

will any of the stages of the mealworm/darkling beetle fly at all?

also are the darkling beetles edible in terms of leoaprd geckos?

last year i had a nightmare in my mealy bran it hatched hundreds of mothes those little 1/2" er's that cling to the ceiling , it was summer so i had the mealies in the house AGHHHH.
i was going around the house with a step stool and a jar of soapy water to catch mothes individually off of the ceiling almost daily(moth soup yum)

The darkling beetles are edible and won't hurt leopard geckos, but they probably won't like them. I feed the deformed beetles to my ASF rats, and sometimes a tarantula will eat the beetles.

At no stage do normal mealworms or their beetles fly.

It's still good to use a finely screened lid of some kind, to keep out grain moths.