Meal worms at maturity. These are probably 12 to 18 weeks old after hatch, under good conditions.
After meal worms are mature (12 to 18 weeks old, depending on how warm, humid and well fed they are) they will pupate.
About 1 to 2 weeks after pupating they morph into beetles. The darkling beetles may start out very pale, like almost white but steadily get darker within a week or so.
Beetles will mate and start laying eggs within a day or so after morphing.
The eggs are microscopic. The egg is much smaller than that. However, in 6 weeks this will be a meal worm that you still may not see except for the substrate they are moving around.
The life cycle is pretty interesting. Beetles lay very tiny eggs, those eggs hatch in less than 2 weeks under perfect conditions, those grow up to be meal worms but may take as long as 10 to 16 weeks and then they pupate. The pupae may seem dried up and dead but in a very short time (one to 2 weeks) they hatch and emerge as a beetle and it starts all over again.
Source: Meal Worm
interesting, didn't know that meal worm goes through metamorphosis.
ReplyDeleteBTW is there any methods to differentiate the male and female of the beetles?