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It all started 3 summers ago, my sister Darcie was in Ms. Roberts' class and they also studied mealworms. When school finished for the year, Ms. Roberts gave Darcie left over mealworms to take home after the class finished with them. When we got them they looked like worms but then they turned into pupa which then turned into gold beetles. At first, I had about 30 of them. Some ate each other, though, even though we fed them mealworm food. We kept them in my bug city which had a fake mountain, a high building, and lots of little houses. Most of the mealworms stayed around the houses. They were messy and we had to clean the city a lot of times. If we didn't, the city got smelly. To give the mealworms water, we would keep a small piece of papertowel wet. Only about 12 turned into pupa with about 10 of them making it into the beetle stage. The beetles were white when they were young then gold and, finally, black when then were old. I finally let the last one go at the end of August. Of course, mealworms aren't really worms. They are really darkling beetles. Even though they look like worms when then are in the larva stage, if you look at them carefully, you can see six legs just like other insects have. The next summer, Ms. Roberts gave me some more mealworms to bring home, about 10. They also lived in my bug city. I think the hardest part of keeping them in the bug city was that they sometimes fell into the groves when I removed the city domes to clean their mess and add more food. I always had to be careful I didn't crush any. From my mealworms, only about four made it to beetles which is okay. If you have any mealworm stories, please, sign my guestbook. |
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