How to Care for Hercules Beetles!

do you like fruit do you like insects well I found the perfect pet for you today we are going to teach you how to take care of Hercules beetles Hercules beetles are a species of rhinoceros beetle and these are some of the largest insects in the United States growing to up to around seven inches long depending on what species of rhinoceros beetle it is the Horn of the Hercules beetle usually is around a third of the length of its body and since males use their horns to battle one another for breeding rights with females size does matter in this case females simply lack the horns and typically have more drab coloration they are overall kind of an olive green color but males also have this beautifully contrasting like black face to them which gives them a really pretty look actually their wings like other Beetle species are actually protected by their modified and hardened four wings called elytra what makes Hercules beetles such a great pet is that they are easy to house they're easy to feed and they're easy to breed they don't bite they don't smell they don't need any special lighting or Heating and their diet consists of fruit as adults we're gonna go over care for the Hercules beetles in each of their life stages so let's start where it all begins at The larva stage the larvae just like the adults are huge I mean look at this guy he's ginormous they typically are light colored and they sit in this C shape pretty much all the time and they are detritivores meaning they eat decaying matter so they eat a lot of dead dead decaying leaves and rotten fruit in the wild but in captivity we recommend actually keeping them separate from one another so they can get enough food some people will keep the larvae together communally however that means they have to compete against one one another for their food and as a result you end up with smaller smaller larva in the end but if you keep them separate from one another they have unlimited resources they don't have to compete and that's when you get the big chunky larvae like this guy these grubs can simply be kept in a ventilated Container full of flake soil which will be their food source until they pupate flake soil is essentially ground up rotten wood with additional nutrients added to it it's used for millipedes isopods and various beta larvae you can buy it as is online or make your own using a recipe found online we put a link to that recipe in the description of this video if you want to make your own flake soil but you can buy it pre-made too the moisture level of the substrate is actually pretty important to the larvae as it's growing you want it to be damp but not wet if that makes sense so if you can reach in and Clump it together and it maintains its shape but doesn't drip underneath while you're squeezing it that's perfect basically if you watch our snake or snake hatching egg videos treat it like perlite and that's the kind of dampness you're looking for as they grow you'll want to increase the size of the larvae's container and we've got this guy actually moving into this big container today so I'm just going to set them in so he isn't upset anymore because I feel bad there you go I'm actually going to like when I when I transplant these I like to create a little bit of a hole because they're going to create a pocket of their own anyway so this just kind of helps kick start that a bit the substrate however will be drained of nutrients over time as they ingest it so once you start noticing a lot of poop which basically your small spherical pieces of I don't know of fresh I guess it's hard to explain it looks like this once you notice that start to accumulate then it's a good idea to swap out the bedding with fresh flake soil if you're using the same batch of substrate as you did previously you can swap it out 100 however if you're using flake soil from a new batch or a new vendor I recommend only switching out about 75 of it so that they don't go into shock from a potential pH discrepancy or pH change over the course of about 12 to 18 months yes it does take a while but at that point your grub your larvae will pupate what they'll do before pupating is actually use their droppings and create like a wall or like a a bubble around them underneath the soil and that'll help protect them while they're developing their new bodies essentially this is called the pupation chamber once it pupates you can just leave it alone to do its thing and then about another two to three months it'll finally become an adult in many cases though especially in cooler temperatures the adults actually won't emerge from the soil feel right away it'll instead stay underground in its pupation chamber for an additional three to four months in order to finish hardening up its new exoskeleton once they're fully developed and hardened though they will emerge as fully formed adults interestingly enough the color of the adults is dependent on the moisture level of their substrate while their larvae and pupae if the substrate is on the drier side the adult is typically darker if the substrate is on the moisture side it's typically a lighter colored adult adults are very easy to care for they can be kept together as long as you only have one male per enclosure as males will fight a four to five gallon enclosure is great for a group of these beetles and extra males can be kept separately in two gallon or larger enclosures this enclosure here is about two gallons and let me show you quickly how we set it up first add about four to five inches of a tropical substrate like Eco Earth at the bottom since they're nocturnal they will be underground in their substrate for most of the day so that's why they need such a thick substrate layer at night that's when they'll actually come out from underneath the soil and you'll see them moving around and that's when they eat too on top of the soil you can add some cork bark wood or other natural Decor that's both rough to allow the beetle to grip and climb it and structurally sound so it doesn't fall and risk injuring the beetle you can feed them a variety of fruits including bananas apples pineapple and oranges and better yet if you have fruit that is going bad in your kitchen they prefer it rotting anyway so that is perfect for these beetles since they're nocturnal I recommend feeding them in the evening and then removing any uneaten food in the morning so it doesn't spoil throughout the day and to make it a little bit easier I also recommend feeding them using a shallow feeding tray so that cleanup is a little bit neater for you if it's too much of a hassle to keep fresh fruits on hand just feed them Beetle jelly instead you can buy Beetle jelly at some specialty reptile stores I know Zoo Med sells a variety I think Komodo does too there's a few different brands that make pre-made Beetle jelly that you just remove the the top put it in their enclosure and it lasts several days or you can also make your own Beetle jelly it's an inch interesting combination of bananas brown sugar protein powder and a few other ingredients and we'll put a link to that recipe in the description below too as adults the Hercules beetle will only live about three to six months longer so they have a pretty short lifespan as adults most of their life is spent underground becoming adults but once they're at this adult stage that's when it's breeding time for these guys and breeding Hercules beetles is as easy as keeping a male and a female together and they will take care of the rest it is recommended to put gravid females in a lay box of sorts so they have some privacy and isolation and they're more likely to rear success or lay their eggs successfully once the grubs emerge or you start noticing them in the soil you can separate them and then the cycle starts all over again but this covers the basics for raising Hercules beetles they're really fun to watch grow it's amazing how much effort they put into just eating everything and then pupating and then finally emerging as adults in the end you can of course just skip all the raising steps and catch these in the wild and keep those as pets but we don't recommend doing that they are native to the Eastern United States this is the Eastern uh Hercules beetles so this one is of course native to the eastern U.S wild caught specimens just like with reptiles have a pretty good chance of containing parasites and if you get a wildcat adult if they only live an additional three to six months you might only have it for like a week before it dies of old age plus it's just best to leave wild animals in the wild then you're not disrupting the natural populations of these guys where they live so we recommend finding a good breeder of Hercules beetles start out with a well-established grub or larva and you can raise it up and it's a really rewarding Experience One Last Thing Before we wrap up it really quickly is handling the Hercules beetle and again they don't bite they don't hiss they don't emit foul smelling liquids when they get scared they are actually pretty easy going the only downside to handling them is they do have pretty hardened protrusions from their legs they kind of have spiky legs this would make them less appetizing to predators in the wild so it's actually a form of defense for them but it does sometimes pinch a bit when you're holding them if that makes sense so just keep that in mind even though they are technically safe to hold so thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed today's video about Hercules beetles and their care thank you patreon backers for your amazing support you allowed us to get these beetles for today's video we've been raising up these grubs for eight months something like that we've had them for a while waiting for this video and now we have adults and a pupa and a larvae that you saw or larva as you saw in this video so thank you everybody and we'll see you next time she has some privacy and oh no the camera isn't pacing me the moisture lover lover um you want the moisture lever is dependent on the moisture level interestingly enough [Music]

Channel: Snake Discovery

Views: 503,249

Keywords: hercules beetle, rhino beetle, rhinoceros beetle, beetle, insect care, invertebrate care, beetle care, rhino beetle care, hercules beetle care, invertebarates, pet insects, exotic pets, pets, animals, reptiles, exotic animals, snake discovery, how to care for beetles, how to raise beetles

Id: 888WBksHGOw

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2023