Gorgeous grubs!

Just look at these gorgeous grubs! Really pleased with this little lot, although as I took this photograph I received a couple of well placed bites! Beetle grubs have powerful jaws and can deliver a good pinch but they are not harmful to us. In our beetle tank we have an assortment of African Fruit Beetles;  Pachnoda sp. Eudicella sp. Smagdethnes sp. and Coelorrhina sp. The tank is very large with a 6 inch depth of 'bug bed' substrate and a rather cosy constant temperature of 30C. A selection of fresh fruit and cucumber slices are fed every day and while half of the tank substrate is allowed to be completely dry the other half is kept slightly damp. With assorted logs on the surface and a warm bright light, the beetles are a pleasure to watch. They happily live their own life cycles, blissfully unaware of observation. What I would like to mention here is that all beetles go through complete metamorphosis just like butterflies, moths and flies. The grubs have a head, an upper body (thorax) with six legs and a large abdomen they drag around behind. ( Caterpillars also only have six legs, the other ones you see are clasper adaptations and not true legs ). The grubs will make a cocoon out of the substrate they find around themselves and inside this they will pupate. These African Beetle grubs, like all beetle grubs, dislike light and being disturbed. We know when they are about as they drag the food down and the substrate quite literally heaves with subterranean movement. They are best left alone but I am hoping one will make its cocoon against the glass side of the tank. If it does, I will keep a photographic diary of events - fingers crossed!

Not quite as beautiful as their parents but beauty is only in the eye of the beholder!