Week 6: Mealworms vs Superworms

When you go to fish shop, did you notice there is actually 2 kind of worms they breed to feed the fish? One of it is named mealworms and another one is named superworms. The picture below will shows the size difference between them.

Mealworm (bottom) and Superworm (top)

To clarify between this 2 worms, major differences is stated below.

Scientific Classification:

• Superworms (Zophobas morio) is a darkling beetle and the larvae are known as superworms
• Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) is also a darkling beetle and the larvae are known as mealworms

Size difference: 

• Superworms - 6.3 cm in length
• Mealworms - 1.25 to 1.8 cm in length

Nutritional Value: 

• Superworms - Approximate: Protein 19.06%, Fat 14.19%, Calcium 173ppm, Fiber 2.60%, Moisture 61.92%, overall chitin ratio is low
• Mealworms - lack essential nutrition, the calcium: phosphorus ratio is not ideal and the exoskeleton is hard and high in chitin

Gut Loading:

All feeders need to be gut loaded before offering to your reptile. Both larvae live right in a container of their food source: bran, cornmeal, rolled oats, breakfast flakes, or chick starter mash. 

• Superworms are voracious eaters and will devour what ever you give them to eat. They are mostly active at night so throw in veggies, fruit, or even bones with marrow
• Mealworms are very inactive in comparison to supers and it is hard to gut load them. The problem is the more you feed them the faster they will pupate

Life Expectancy: 

• Superworms can stay in the larvae stage for up to a year, they only turn into pupae if separated from all other larvae. 
• Stage Time (affected by temperature, humidity and food)
• Egg 4-19 days 
• Larva 10 weeks. Visible in 7-10 days
• Pupae 6-18 days
• Beetle live from 3 to 15 years
• Number of eggs produced 100 to 500
• Mealworms will pupate within 12 to 50 days if not refrigerated, they do not have to be separated from the other larvae.
• Stage Time (affected by temperature, humidity and food)
• Egg 10 to 12 days
• Larva 12 to 54 days
• Pupae 20 days
• Beetle 60 to 90 days
• Number of eggs produced 80 to 100

We shared on how to breed mealworms on previous post. Maybe you will interested on how to breed superworms as well.

Breeding Superworms: 

• Superworm beetles: 
• The beetles must be kept on the same food source as the larvae and fed daily otherwise they will eat the eggs. In addition feed them fruit, veggies and greens - no potatoes! A female lay between 100 and 500 eggs in her lifetime. Put egg containers inside the tub to give the beetles hiding areas and to make transferring to a different tub easy, transferring needs to be done every 2 to 3 weeks to give the eggs time to hatch. You should see the larvae within 7 to 10 days. 
• Superworm larvae: 
• After 5 months the larvae are big enough to be separated and placed in containers similar to this:
• Do not provide any food or water because this will prolong the process. The larvae will curl up and go through a metamorphoses. 
• Superworm pupae: 
• Metamorphoses will last between 6 and 18 days before the beetle will emerge.

Google search keywords: comparison of mealworms and superworms