Does anyone have experience with Hercules beetles or other giant insects?

[Saga pedo]

Hi, I am on the lookout for any large insect species that has some sort of personality to it.

Preferably, it should be a plant eater and tropical, so it has no chance of survival in the wild in Greece at USDA zone 9b.

I am thinking of things like Hercules beetle, jungle nymphs, giant katydids or myriapods.

No spiders or centipedes; they bite!

 

[Andrew Clayton]

Hi, I am on the lookout for any large insect species that has some sort of personality to it.

Preferably, it should be a plant eater and tropical, so it has no chance of survival in the wild in Greece at USDA zone 9b.

I am thinking of things like Hercules beetle, jungle nymphs, giant katydids or myriapods.

No spiders or centipedes; they bite!

What about Mantis? Hierodula gets get big.

 

[Saga pedo]

Yes, but the big Asian ones could be naturalized here and others are very sensitive to temperature, humidity and so on i have read.

Besides, I have kept native ones, so I want to try out something new.

 

[Ratmosphere]

I do have experience with Hercules beetles, many different species in fact. If you want to keep adults, the care is simple. Let's talk about Dynastes hercules hercules for example. Find a bin large enough for the male, and a smaller one for the female. Drill air holes in both of these, but not too many; you need to keep humidity inside the containers. Use damp sphagnum moss in these bins as the substrate, and provide beetle jellies as a food source. The adults are not long lived so many people choose to breed them.

For this you need to set up a breeding box. You will need a tall/wide container (at least 12 inches in height or bigger), organic potting soil or flake soil, some leaves/sphagnum moss on top and beetle jellies. The substrate needs to be damp, but not wet where water is able to be squeezed out of it. When you transport the male and female into the breeding box, you will witness mating at some point. Make sure to provide leaves/sphagnum moss on top as the beetles can flip over. Without something to grab onto on top, they can flip over and pass away. After mating, the female will disappear into the substrate for a few weeks/months. Separate the male back into his original container. Feel free to breed him with the female again when she surfaces to feed. Make sure the substrate maintains the proper moisture level.

After a few weeks/months, the female will disappear and lay eggs. After this timeframe, you will need an unscented heavy duty black garbage bag. Rip the bag open creating a covering for a portion of your floor. Now we need to grab the egg laying container and gently flip it upside down on the garbage bag. The substrate should slide out in the form of the container it was in, almost like when you build a sand castle. From here, gently break off "blocks" of the substrate and separate the eggs. These will look like white airsoft BB's. I will now separate each egg into it's own deli cup container with airholes and substrate.

After a while, larvae will emerge from these eggs. The larvae will poop a lot and leave "frass" in their cups. If there is too much frass in their environment, they will need to be moved to a larger container with a fresh food supply. I keep them on the organic potting soil/flake soil until they are L2, and they need to be rehoused after hitting this stage. After L2, they will need a constant supply of flake soil with proper decay. At L3 they start to get big and will need a bigger container with even more substrate. These larvae get HUGE when fed properly, so having a container large enough for each is essential. They get so big, and require a lot of substrate changes, so you are better off selling all of your extra larvae online or locally. They need a ton of substrate their whole larval stage.

Once the larvae gets to late L3 and turns very yellow, they will finally hit the pupa stage. From here, they will construct a pupal cell, and start their next stage of life. It is important to not bother the beetle in this stage. Make sure the pupal chamber is not collapsed, if it does, you can gently remove the pupa and create an artificial cell out of floral foam. After a while, the beetle emerges. It is not uncommon for them to enclose with a bent horn/elytra not fully shut exposing the wings. This care sheet is relatively the same for all Hercules species, even the smaller ones. If you are in the USA, Dynastes grantii and Dynastes tityus are available every so often and are less overwhelming to breed/care for larvae. This is because they do not get nearly as big as the Dynastes hercules hercules.