so i opened up my mealworm container and...

[jordiwantsachami]

there were little black bugs in it?? not like nats or anything but beetle looking bugs. does anyone know what these are or if they are harmful to the cham being that they were once acceptable food and then morphed into this bug and have never eaten anything but what was in the mealworm container?

 

[jamncristian]

they are the adult stage of a meal worm and can be fed if you take off the back shell
but in limited amounts due to being high in chitin

 

[chamtrainer]

You could feed them if you would like. That is what mealworms turn into when they are full grown. They are not harmfull.

 

[jordiwantsachami]

they are the adult stage of a meal worm and can be fed if you take off the back shell
but in limited amounts due to being high in chitin

whats chitin? Leon ate about three of them. is he going to be ok?

 

[jamncristian]

chitin is the hard exoskeleton of an insect that can cause
impaction if fed too often in high amounts

how big is leon??

he probably should be ok

 

[Stephikins]

I live in Florida and what am I supposed to do with these bugs if I don't want to feed them to my cham? Are they harmful to the environment being foreign if i let them go? I guess they can be bird food. Thanks!

 

[jordiwantsachami]

they were a small enough size i dont think they would have harmed him. he is used to eating dubia anyway. and the bugs can be let go or i just wikipediaed it and they will breed and make more mealworms. :-/ wish i would have known that before i fed them to him. thanks for all your help!

 

[PsychoRep]

what i do is put them in a container with oatmeal leave them there with food and after a few weeks look and dig around and youll see baby mealworms its that simple

 

[Syn]

Could you take pictures? If the super worms had enough food I don't see reason for them to have morphed (unless I misunderstand the whole breeding idea).

 

[mc9423]

Could you take pictures? If the super worms had enough food I don't see reason for them to have morphed (unless I misunderstand the whole breeding idea).

Meal worms metamorphose just with sufficient temperatures.

Super worms metamorphose by being in "solitary confinement" for a while.

This thread is about meal worms though

 

[Syn]

Erk yeah I realized that after I typed it and for some reason on this computer it won't let me edit the post. Haha. But thank you for the information.

 

[Jono]

Setup a separate container with digestive bran etc and put the beetles in there (or the pupae if you see them, the meal worms sort of recede into a shorter, legless looking casing while they morph into beetles.)

They need a bit more moisture as beetles so make sure they have fresh veggies along with the usual food. Its quite easy to setup up a cycle which will keep generating more worms indefinitely so you never have to buy them again.