What should I feed my pet beetle?

Question

I found a huge beetle outside. I caught it because I am fascinated with huge bugs. What should I feed it to keep it alive and healthy?

Answer 1

It depends on what kind of beetle it is. Search online, take it to a nature center, or see if you can find it in an insect identification guide. When you find its species, it would be best to set up a container and feed it a diet that best mimics what it would have in nature. There are so many different species of bugs, you might not be able to find out its actual species.
If you can't find out what it is, offer it a variety of foods until you see it start eating something: leaves from the trees, bushes, and herbaceous plants (like grass and dandelions) in the area you found it in, peanut butter, honey, cooked meats, cheese, feeder crickets or meal worms, chunks of raw fruits and vegetables. It's bound to start eating something.

If the beetle refuses to feed on anything you offer, it should be released.

If you don't know what waterbugs look like, place your beetle in a container of water and see if it will swim, but if you just see it floundering or struggling on the surface, you should remove it as soon as it becomes apparent that your beetle can't swim.

You should keep a small saucer or shallow dish of sugar water in its enclosure while you figure out its living requirements, or there is also a bottled nutritious blue gel that may be sold in pet stores, originally intended for feeder crickets, but could probably be used to hydrate your beetle too. An ideal enclosure would be one of the transparent plastic containers with a vented top, designed specifically to hold small animals, and are sold in any pet store. Lastly, protect it from any other pets you have- they will probably eat it (I've lost too many caterpillars to the cats). Good luck!

Answer 2

i would go to your local pet store and find out ASAP so that way the bug can survive...also as of now i would just keep the beetle in a big container WITH AIR HOLES and filled with dirt and grass and leaves and other little bugs just incase he prefers one over the other...maybe also google can help?? but if i were you i would just keep him for a while then let him go...let him live his life as you would want to live yours...not locked in a container...now im not any animal rights actavist or anything like that...its just the right thing to do..so keep him for a while...then i guess before you go to sleep i'd let him go..well hope i've helped

Answer 3

depends on the beetle, research what type you have, and feed it something close to what it would get in the wild, some eat decaying leaves, some eat dung(poop), there are more types of beetles than any thing eles in the work so good luck!!

Answer 4

Fleas, found in any pet store.