Hello! I posted this same question to a sub about invertebrate pets, but I also figured this was a pretty good place to post as well.

My girlfriend is very sick right now, like bedridden, and I would really like to be able to surprise them with something when they're starting to feel well again. They've been talking about scarab beetles for about as long as we've known each other, and they're already used to taking care of pets in terrariums (frog), so I thought getting them a scarab would be a pretty cool idea.

The issue is that I have absolutely no idea how to get one and how to set up an enclosure.

Would someone be able to provide me with a crash course on all things scarab beetle so that I'm able to do this right?

Rainbow stag horn pupating :) love her so much

Title pretty much says it all. I loved insects when I was little, developed a fear of many of them as a slightly older child, but now that I'm an adult I've looped back around and am over my fear of the majority of the classes people would generally consider "bugs". I'm now fascinated by beetles and find them pretty adorable, and I want to try keeping a rhino beetle as a pet eventually... but I still am irrationally petrified of grubs (and other worm shaped creatures but that's not relevant to beetle keeping). I know this is dumb because they're literally just baby beetles... harmless, helpless, mostly just squirming and growing very similarly to any other sleepy baby, but something about this shape of creature sets off a primal fear response in me. This is coming from someone who finds way more visually intimidating and potentially pain inducing invertebrates cute.

I understand I could just purchase an adult beetle, but I would like to have my pet for the longest amount of time possible, and I also feel like the bond that'd come from raising it from a larva would be next level.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get over this, or any facts/photos you could share that you think would help? Has anyone dealt with the same? If so, how did you get over it?

about once a week my larva (dynastes hyllus) hangs out at or close to the surface of its substrate. it buries back down after a while (usually within an hour or two, earlier if i happen to disturb it) and only comes back up about a week later. the larva is otherwise healthy and gaining weight. it's in a 1 liter container.

i have a second larva of this species in the same substrate in an equally sized container and it doesn't exhibit this behaviour.

does anyone know what's up? is this normal or should i change anything about the enclosure or substrate?

Hi! first time sharing here. These are some of my favorite beetles from my current collection of adults
1-4: P.muelleri male & female, Pikal variant (shiny thorax)
5: H.parryi
WD and currently in the process of breeding my own WF line
6-7: P.astacoides castaneus
recently eclosed WF1 red stag I've raised since egg, he came out bigger than his WD dad!

Probably not rare but beautiful to look at

1st picture is of my male metallic stag beetle (Cyclommatus metallifer)

Second is for my female rainbow stag beetle (Phalacrognathus muelleri)

Both enclosures contain only one beetle each.

Both enclosures are 12" by 7", contain coco coir which i mist once every two days, and some stuff to climb on. My room stays at a consistent, warm temperature.

My rainbow stag keeps flying into her walls but as far as i can tell, shes perfectly fine doing that for some reason.

But am i doing good?

My purple metallic stag beetle, Kronen. And my Rainbow stag beetle, Eudico

Been picking magnolia seeds as i am planning on growing some this upcoming spring. Today, i found a little passenger hiding in between the pods parts. I think he looks quite daper. Colorado potato beetle possibly. I haven't seen one of these before.

Hi

i got a dynastes Hercules at larave stage 3, I stored in a bottle

I checked it daily and found out starting from about 2 to 3 days ago he/she stayed at the bottom of the bottle and didn’t change place until now

i check it moved yesterday tho

im worried, what may be happening?

(is it turning into a pupa???!!!?)

New section?

What's up with my buge? She has some sort of broken wing (?) or what? Eating&messing around normally, her back looks like that after she emerged from pupae? Do I need to do anything about it?

We had a female Japanese rhino beetle who had around 11 eggs, all hatched and died in various stages. We bought the soul that’s specific for these larvae, made sure the soil is damp but not too wet or dry and changed out their soil once every 7-10 days or sooner if we noticed there was poop accumulating. They were in their own containers, but all of them died except for one. Is that normal? Or did we do something wrong?

Well, I have some Lagria villosa beetles. I guess they aren't particularly social insects, but they seemed to be fine living in the same terrarium and sharing food, etc.

but on past few weeks, one of my beetles has started leaving the terrarium. I put him back, but he keeps escaping, over and over again. So, I decided to move him to a separate terrarium.

Yesterday, another beetle escaped and made his way into the antisocial beetle's terrarium.He left his terrarium, which was weird because I later found him on the floor. Then I realized that he might have escaped because of the other beetle. idk if it was just a coincidence, but he even leaves whenever another beetle gets close to his terrarium, even if it doesn't actually get inside. 😭

okay so tonight I had a dream about a giant beetle pinned in a match box but it was still alive and scrapping inside the box.

I think it was some kind of memory where I saw sometling like that when I was a kid.

People did that, didn't they?

That sound was so weird and I wanted to check if that was only a dream sound or I remembered it right.

I was searching for youtube videos but well thats obviously something of the past when people would do it (gross). But maybe someone remembers that and has audio that sounds similar?