#schrodinger's beetle larvae 😔

[pangur-and-grim]

I know you're excited about the kitten grubs, but how is your ACTUAL grub doing?? You haven't been posting about the grub. I NEED grub content. PLEASE, GREER.

oh that's right, I haven't spoken much about my beetle larvae!

to give a refresher, in January I ordered a smooth stag beetle grub, spoon lowered it into its enclosure, and watched it tunnel under the dirt

and since then I've had a pet tub of dirt. completely unchanging.

however the store messed up, and accidentally shipped my order twice. so the next day, I got a second surprise beetle grub, and had to scramble to put together another enclosure for it!

this is when I made my first mistake: it was a large tub, but too shallow for the grub.

my second mistake was in how I moistened the soil. the online instructions I read said the soil should be kept "wet enough that it clumps in your hand". which, given the heating is going full blast in my house and drying the air out, meant I was spritzing the soil to moisten it every morning.

and then one day I found my beetle grub at the surface of the dirt, unmoving. extremely dead :(

I gave him a proper burial. but his death surprised me. I had to revaluate how I've been caring for them - it's possible that I misunderstood the soil instructions, and spritzed too often. AND in a shallow container, there's less room for the water to go, and more chance of the grub getting overly sodden.

so one grub is unfortunately deceased. what about the second one? I have corrected my mistake and am spraying less water, but was it too little too late? or is it still alive in there, undergoing metamorphosis?

in any case, I'm determined to keep this bucket of dirt for 8 months on the off chance a beetle crawls out of it, and will be tenderly caring for it until then.