Is a meal worm beetle's young look alike the adult?

Answer 1

Darklings (mealworms) have four stages of life: incubation, larval, pupal and adult . Click on this link to see an image:
http://insected.arizona.edu/mealinfo.htm

Answer 2

This is an odd question for engineering, but mealworms are the larval (young) stage of mealworm beetles, so they don't look like the adults. Beetles have complete metamorphosis in the four stages of egg, larva, pupa and adult, as opposed to the incomplete metamorphosis of other families of insects where the larvae look like miniature adults - grasshoppers for example.

Answer 3

The look like little brown worms before their metamorphosis into beetles. If you had lizards or chameleons as pets you would know because the mealworms are a popular live food for feeding them.

Answer 4

I once had an engineering professor that looked a lot like a ....well, never mind.