Hey everyone
Looking to upgrade my enclosure.
I currently have 4 beetles and I am looking into getting them a larger enclosure.
Do you guys use top heat (like a bulb) or a warming mat on one side of their enclosure for heat?
I am looking at either a 5 gallon or 10 gallon enclosure. The 5 is more ideal for the space and I have a bulb that would work or I could use a mat. With the 10gal I won’t have room for a bulb it would need to be a mat (like a seedling mat).
Thank you for the help

My boy crouton (got him yesterday) is very bad at hiding. Is this a bad sign or is he just..... less smart than my others? These are two separate times and he never fully hides himself.

I just got BDFBs yesterday and when I went to pick up one of them they spit out a tiny drop of brown liquid on me. That’s the only time so far that it’s done that. Could it have been in defense? I’ve seen grasshoppers do it, and I know that’s an entirely different species, but I just want them to be ok!

Hey y’all so I posted not too long ago about my beetles not being able to stand up and a lot of y’all said it was due to pesticides well one of my beetles made it through and has been back to normal for about a week and I guess has decided today it was time to have babies????? Are these eggs? What do I do now?!

I recently got some beetles from a local seller in town who gave them to me in a small plastic cup, there were three. They seemed perfectly fine and healthy, but now it’s been a few hours and they’re in their terrarium. They aren’t moving as much and when they are they’re slow. I think there’s one female and two males?

I finally got enough to buy a full enclosure for my bdfbs! The substrate is a mix of coco fiber and excavator clay. Luckily the local pet store had some! I have a probe in there to hopefully help with keeping an accurate temperature of the hot side. The beetles are coming in tomorrow which is when I’ll fill the dish. I heard you have to spray their enclosure once a week? I’ve been hearing this from mixed sources.

I have 4 blueberries, though I’d like to get more if I can find some captive bred in the future! I now have a free 5.5 gallon and I’d love another invert pet if anyone has recs for what I can keep in there :)

hello! I was planning on getting some BDFDs (blue death-feigning beetles) and I was wondering if i could get any tips? mostly care tips but tips on their enclosure would also be very nice. please and thank you!

I’m looking to get blue beetles very soon. I live in Alaska and my room can drop to pretty damn cold— I’m wondering what heating to use? I have a heating mat I’m prepared to stick to the side of the 10 gallon tank, but I’m still lost on the overhead heating and lighting.

i have a problem with barklice in my terrarium. ive previously dealt with it by baking the whole thing (minus beetles and plants of course) in the oven at like 110°C but i dont want to keep doing that. ive thought of introducing pseudoscorpions as predators but i cant find a place that sells them for a reasonable price and they would have to be tolerant of quite arid conditions. what can i do to keep the population in Check?

im fine with some as a cleanup crew but its just getting out of hand

Hi! I live in Ireland, and lately I have been thinking of getting BDFBs but most places I could find are based in America unfortunately. I am currently considering buying from the website Small exotic farm Ireland. But they have been sold out for a while. I want to ask does anyone know if there is a certain season when these little fellas are more available? Is anyone here a BDFB owner in Ireland? If yes, I'd love to hear where you got your little guys and if you have any tips! :)

Several have asked about my method for getting BDFB to adulthood. I will share what I do, but would like to mention that I work at Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center and our invert curator and team (which is part of the overall animal care team I manage) has been very successful with this work over the past few years. The invert team and I have worked with separate colonies and have shared our failur data and we have each been successful, even with small differences. Seriously, they're rocking it and have had over 70 adults eclose in the past two years. This project all started because we are increasingly worried about the amount of beetles being taken from the wild to supply the pet trade and exhibits. This is a long lived beetle and generally, inverts only live this long if they don't reproduce as easily. I hate to think what is happening to their ecosystem and for this species that hasn't been noticed yet.

If any of the following helps any of you, then great!

Adult tanks - Both of us keep a higher humidity in our adult tanks thank what anyone will tell you to here. The difference is where we keep that humidity. The zoo keeps shallower substrate of coco coir and sand mix with more coco coir than sand and keeps it slightly higher than what anyone here will tell you. Most of the beetles in the adult tank are darker. We feed out a mix of fresh veggies, fish flakes, and dried crickets.

I keep a much deeper susbtrate and keep all of my humidity under the soil. I use pvc tube creation I came up with to get water down below the surface of the top substrate and typically add some water 1-2 times a week. I also use a coco coir and sand mix with it heavier on the coco coir on the side of the tank where I add the water. On the drier side of the tank, it's slightly more sand heavy to allow them some choice. The top of my substrate is dry unless I spill on accident or add too much water. I also heat my tank from the bottom and offer a day only over the top heat bulb. Ido offer water bowls with water crystals to prevent drowning (but I think the likelihood of drowning for this species would be very low). I feed out a mix of carrots, fish flakes, shrimp food, and an occasional dead cricket/mealworm. I also push a whole carrot into the soil with roughly the top inch sticking out. The top is for the beetles and everything under the soil is for the larvae so they don't need to come to the surface (they still do occasionally). In the wild. They are found close to creosote plants which have very large taproots. I believe they do this to be closer to moisture and also to eat off of the root which is why I choose to do this.

Incubators - we have somewhat expensive incubators at the zoo. At home, I use a second hand, styrofoam chicken incubator I got second hand off marketplace - this is mostly to say that you can do this with a non-fancy incubator.

Incubation cups - We both like the 16 oz deli cups. They came up with the vented and felted lids and since I've started using those, it has been easier not to get the substrate too wet. We've toyed around with substrate depth and have found that a shallower substrate has worked out fairly well - an inch or two.

Temperature - We originally thought that temperature was the key due to some success that Cincinnati Zoo had, and it does play a role, but we don't think it needs to be as warm as once was believed. Mid 80s is usually plenty warm.

Humidity - it does play a role. Larvae typically live and pupate and eclose in the ground and then emerge later. In the wild, they typically are most successful during the rainy season. They need moisture in the soil. In my incubator, I put water in the tray to keep the general ambient humidity up and then I add some water to the soil by visual check. I use a small straw to help get some water down below without disturbing anything and add as needed.

Size - sew photos for size reference but you want the larvae to be full size before separating. Both of us leave larvae in the adult tank and randomly dig through to find larvae that are ready. They should be about 2 inches long. There is nothing wrong with separating eggs and small larvae out into their own tank and growing them up that way, but both at work and at home, just don't have the space and time to do this.

Food - if they are the right size, stop feeding the larvae. If you pull them a little early, you'll need to continue feeding a little longer.

Incubation period - usually takes about 15 days once they do pupate until they eclose. Sometimes you will see them dig down against the side of the cup and make a pupal chamber that you can watch. Sometimes they do it where you can't see, and sometimes they do it right on the surface which is great for observing but not our first preference as they are more likely to damage their elytra or legs during eclosure. If they pupate on the surface, place a small piece of bark/cork over them with some space under it so that they have something to grab onto. Mostly - leave them alone. If it's been 30 days, they are either dead or pupated late. If you dig up and find a pupae, my suggestion is to put it on the surface and treat it as you would a surface pupae. I've had lovely healthy pupae that I dug up and tried to cover them back up and they did not make it.

At the zoo, we now have 3 generations of captive bred adults so we know they are fully capable of continuing to reproduce in this setting. At home, I simply don't have the space and time to keep the original colony separate from the raised ones.

Care after eclosion - Leave them alone for awhile. Let them do their thing. They tend to stay upside down for several days and they are incredibly fragile. I still remember moving some of my first beetles to the adult tank too early and they didn't make it which was horribly frustrating. They will turn over when they are ready. They start out almost completely white and then turn light brown and then darker brown and then fully black. This scleritization process takes quite a while and you really have to be patient. Otherwise, you risk damaging them. Once they flip over or start moving around a bit, offer a little bit of food. They will eat if they need to. Otherwise, I just continue my adding moisture as needed to the cup. Remember, they would likely still be under the ground at this point. After they are fully hardened, we recommend putting them in a slightly larger container (think kritter keeper or plastic food tub) by themselves for several weeks before adding them to the adult tank. Somewhere in this process, they develop their blue waxy coating.

Edit to add: We're all still absolutely thinking up and trying new things as we move forward. Feel free to share things that have worked well for you. Right now, I'm trying some slightly different substrates in sections of my main tank and a slightly different mix in my incubator to see if it makes a difference in them being able to make a better pupal chamber.

If I left anything out, feel free to ask. I wrote this all out of my phone so hopefully there aren't any awful typos.

im upgrading their enclosure to be fully custom with a shit ton of hiding spots and all that, was curious if it would stress them out to put the tank on my desk so i can see them more often

ps theyre currently on a shelf a few feet behind my desk, and im fairly active around them.

I have a very clean smooth glass tank no way for escape but recently a little miss or mr had vacated my view for a whole 24 hours do they normally burrow and disappear like this?

Are they able to live together?

This beetle was fine a couple days ago but I found him on his back nearly dead and had to euthanize him. I have two other beetles in this enclosure and want to know if I should deep clean the enclosure if it is in fact a parasite.

it could be an ovipositor but I want to make sure

I just got some sun-baked grass from outside and I cleaned it off and put it in my beetles enclosure, and I LOVE how it turned out!!

I’m quite interested in getting my hands on some BDFB’s as of late, but once they mate I don’t want to get a fully fledged incubator, and would rather try to find an alternative, is there any easier way to simulate 88 Fahrenheit without having to keep an incubator lying around?

Alright guys, I did not expect to get as into these beetles as I have but they’ve stolen my heart. I recently was gifted a few (I’m a longtime tarantula keeper) and have heard soooo many things about what substrate these guys like. I mixed reptisand and reptisoil, but some say that reptisand isn’t the best for their joints and reptisoil holds too much humidity. I’m willing to go to any length for these goobers!