Beetle Larva Identification/Help

[Snailientologist]

I received the following beetle larva when a friend dug up their garden. I could not return it to the garden because they planned to treat it with pesticides. But now for several unfortunate reasons I can not release it at all and I need advice on how to care for it.


Does anyone know what it is? I suspect it might be a green June beetle because I have observed it crawling on its back, but I am unsure. I know that larvae are hard to identify, but any general advice about them is really needed. Right now I have it in a small-ish jar with the garden's soil and bits of dead roots.

 

[pannaking22]

Certainly a scarab, if you can get some dried leaves that haven't been treated with pesticides you can crunch them up and mix them in the soil for it to eat. Make sure they're super dry and crispy.

 

[Snailientologist]

Thank you so much!

 

[Schiem]

A lot of scarab larvae eat decaying wood. You can buy a product called flake soil (it's pretty expensive), you can make your own, or you can find a rotting log and mix the wood in with your soil. A good indicator that a log is in the correct state of decay is that it will easily come apart in your hands. I would mix some of that in as well. If you have the soil it came in, roots, decaying leaves, and decaying wood then you should have all of your bases covered for things that beetle larvae typically eat.

Other than that, leave it alone in a place it won't be disturbed too much, and don't let the substrate completely dry out. They also don't need a huge amount of air flow, a lot of people just poke some pin holes in the lid of their container.

 

[Snailientologist]

Thank you. What size of container should it have? Long or tall?

 

[Schiem]

People have had success with both. I'm currently using 32oz deli containers (the semi clear plastic ones), but in the past I've also used normal tupperware containers. You can probably get away with 16oz containers for most beetle larvae, but 32oz would be on the safe size. 32oz should cover anything but the largest beetles, and you'll know pretty quickly if you have one of those.