Deformed Zophobas morio beetles after metamorphosis

[Tarzanus]

I've had my first superworms beetles complete pupation yesterday. Most of them are OK, but it seems some have some issues. there are a couple of them that seem to be normal, but they often lie down to the ground, hardly moving and have their legs crossed like they are about to die. When I touch them, they run away like there's nothing wrong with them. Is that normal behaviour for freshly transformed darkling beetles?

The second case is much, much worse. I have had high hopes and anticipations for the largest worm that gave XXL pupa. I bought those king size worms separately from other, regular size in larger batch. Here's the thing, everything seemed to go OK until the pupa started molting, I have noticed it at one point when it was having hard time "undressing". I saw that the wings were not developed and it couldn't get the molt off. I was able to get it off from the back side so it could start moving around. I think it has cleared the molt from the mouth area, so hopefully it will be able to eat, but I think the area around it's head is still enclosed.


Like I said, this was a large worm I have bought in a different pet store. They were really much larger and possibly older. It is from the first batch of worms I started pupating, so they might have been underfed or watered before they started the metamorphosis process.

I was thinking about the possible cause and I can only think of few.
- It might have been something in their food in the pet store that could cause damage.
- Temperature of ~29°C was too high for the pupation process and it caused some of them to become underdeveloped or damaged in the process.
- Worms were not properly fed and watered before they started the metamorphosis.
- Some of the superworms I bought were already genetically handicapped due to inbreeding and not enough genetic diversity.
- The larger larvae are also the oldest. As they get older, there is more and more risk something goes wrong during the pupation process.
- It is perfectly normal to see some superworms that aren't capable of successful metamorphosis and it was just a coincidence that it was also the largest one.

Might be all of the above for what I know. I'm new to breeding superworms, so I have little or no experience regarding their breeding.

 

[LawnShrimp]

A lot of my morio worms have had similar problems to that, though none have had it that bad (I feed off the deformed beetles to my inverts). All of the possible causes you listed are likely, though I have found that humidity is important in fully straightening out wings and elytra. I kept my pupae in a plastic container with moist coconut fiber substrate and most of the ones produced from that method have been handicap-free. After the substrate dried out, a pupa I missed after cleaning turned into a beetle with crumpled wings and stuck exoskeleton. It could have been a coincidence but I do believe humidity plays an important factor.

The other most likely factor is bad breeding stock as you mentioned you bought this individual in a separate group from the rest of the beetles that turned out healthy.