Dermestids / Cleaner Crews

[yoshimi]

Sorry about that Crystal - pictures would be great! = )

I'd say the red beetles were likely adult mealworm beetles (Tenebrio molitor); it isn't that uncommon to see the occasional red specimen that is hypopigmented. So yes, most likely your adult flour/darkling beetles. If you can get pictures up, we can definitely be confident.

Was tough to get good pics at 1st as they kept running around on cardboard trying to hide. Some of them were a darker red, like a burgundy maybe offspring of the tomato red ones, dunno. So I gathered them and some worms from cricket bin and roach bin plus my surplus cup and put them in this tiny plastic cup. It used to hold jack daniel's bbq sauce from sat night's leftovers.


One of the beetles decided to use his wings so I whacked him back down into cup with camera lens. You can see he still had them out and was buzzing around for a bit: He's since put them back but I can see that he has them overhanging his bum. The only one old enough to be able to use his wings, I guess.

So if these are mini meal worm beetles, (those worms never get much bigger than pictured), aren't they basically useless? All they'd do is eat the food meant for bugs and procreate. I gave them an exoskeleton and a half and they're just trying to burrow into it for cover, plus a cricket orange cube and some oats. Plan to watch and see what they do. Creepy little buggers.

Would they be a safe feeder for my toad, to get rid of them? I know their shells are hard, but I'd think outside, he (or she) would be eating things like this. So I'm wondering if I can offer them to him. Or her.

Here are some pics of my roaches, just because. I guess it's true that 1st time pregnancies can take 6 weeks, cuz yesterday was 28 days after I spotted 1st ootheca. Oh well.
She's like "are you kidding me?" But Mouse was just watching the others and she doesn't eat bugs anyway, just mews at me and paws them:Good looking fella:
This is a toilet paper tube, and a community meeting spot, I guess: and the other side.