- Joined
- Mar 1, 2014
- Messages
- 1,086
Hi all! I have been keeping Blue Death-Feigning Beetles for a while, and like many of you, have seen a number of beetle larvae in the enclosure, (that is the easy part) but never had any pupate. I learned from posts here on AB by @Dean Rider how to get the larvae to pupate(http://arachnoboards.com/threads/inducing-bdfb-to-pupate.280289/page-2#post-2822520)
so now I am going to attempt to get some larvae to pupate and raise them to adulthood. I have a 20-gallon vivarium with a few inches of play sand. Approximately 1/3 of the substrate has some coco fiber, organic compost, and crushed hardwood leaves mixed in. There are rocks, cholla skeletons, and sun bleached sagebrush branches as climbing surfaces. I feed dead crickets, dried river shrimp, fish flood flakes, sweet potato, carrots, DIY beetle jelly, etc. I have a 70-watt daylight bulb on for about 12 hours per day. I dampen the sand on the side with the substrate amendments a little every week or so. As of now, the beetles have only been in this new setup for a couple of weeks. I believe I have 2.3 BDFBs. In the photo above, you can clearly discern the male from the female.
If you would like to see the livestream where I released the beetles into the enclosure and discussed the project in more detail, it is here:
