Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A couple days ago I put a few meal worms in for two of my anoles to eat. When i checked later in the evening there was only 1 worm left, and i decided to pick it out before i went to sleep to make sure it dind't crawl out or end up dying from cold or whatnot. I forgot to take it out...and behold it was gone the next day. I figured one of the lizards had eaten it...or it had escaped into the bark pieces. Today i heard a crunching noise and i found my smaller male eating none other than a meal worm beetle! I was kind of surprised and unsure of what to do, he seemed to be crunching it down at a regular pace, and stopped to brush away the wings from its mouth. This was a mature (black) beetle. I probably would have attempted something dumb like pulling it out of the anole's mouth but it didn't seem to have any problems with eating the beetle. I haven't put any more in and have been feeding them regularly with crickets meal worms wax worms and the occasional small dull orange/brown colored moth (they really do seem to like these). I always figured the shell of a beetle would be too hard and tough for them to eat, is it really unsafe for them? I dont plan on putting in beetles
of any kind for them to eat but i was just wondering. Thanks for any information.

Chris.

Mealworms are very easy to keep! I had many success with them while they grew in a very fast rate, changed into pupas, and out came darkling beetles. I think a beetle was found in your cage possibly because it could be a unnoticed mealworm that escaped from your grasp and disappeared into your cage, survived into adulthood. And when your hungry anole discovered it, the beetle was eaten. I fed few beetles to my anoles before, but it's not a good idea, to be general. Their shells are hard, and anoles could have difficult time digesting, but if they'll be able to digest it without any difficulty, then it's excellent. I'll advise you not to feed beetles, but if you're really interested in feeding another one, here's a simple way: pick out all the pupas from mealworms' cage. Put pupas in a seperate empty container. In a few days or weeks, the beetles will crawl out. New beetles are soft in every part of their body, and they'll be easy to digest for lizards. They're cream-white in color.

Tim