Blue Death-feigning Beetle — Fact Sheet

Asbolus verrucosus · Blue Death-feigning Beetle

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• A 60 × 30 × 30 cm ventilated enclosure provides a practical starting point for a small group.
• Check each animal can reach food and shelter.
• Keep new arrivals separately for several weeks on a simple substrate, using separate tools and recording activity and feeding.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Use roughly 5–8 cm of firm, diggable, pesticide-free soil and sand, with a dry upper layer.
• Pure loose sand gives poor footing; avoid calcium sand and dusty powders.
• Support stones on the enclosure base so digging cannot undermine them.

💡 Lighting

• Use a 12-hour day with diffuse light and shaded shelters.
• UVB has not been established as necessary.
• Place lamps outside the enclosure and prevent access to hot fittings.

🌡️ Temperature

• Provide air around 23–27°C, a small warm surface around 28–30°C and a cooler refuge around 21–24°C.
• Allow 18–22°C at night.
• A low-output overhead lamp under thermostat control can create the gradient; check surfaces with an infrared thermometer and air with a probe.
• Do not convert published larval-rearing temperatures into adult housing targets.

💧 Humidity & water

• Keep adult housing dry and ventilated, approximately 20–40% relative humidity where practical.
• Offer moisture in fresh vegetables and an extremely shallow water cap with an easy exit.
• Do not mist the beetles: wetting temporarily darkens their wax coating and persistent damp promotes mold.
• Do not wash an animal to restore its colour.

🪳 Diet

Staple foods — follow the feeding schedule:

• Offer small portions daily or every other day: dead feeder insects or suitable fish food for protein, alongside carrot, squash or leafy vegetables.
• Remove moist remains within a day.
• This is a scavenging omnivore, not an animal to maintain on sweet fruit alone.
• Avoid salted foods, pesticide residues and live biting prey.

In moderation:

• Sweet fruit is a small part of a varied diet, never the only food.

Avoid:

• Pesticide-contaminated food, spoiled leftovers and unverified wild-collected foods.

Supplements:

• Routine reptile vitamin dusting is unnecessary.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Temporary darkening after water contact differs from ongoing lethargy or inability to walk.
• Check temperature, trapped legs, recent chemical exposure and spoiled food.
• Never apply insecticides or mite treatments without specialist veterinary advice.
• A damaged shell, leaking body fluid or persistent inability to right itself warrants an invertebrate-experienced veterinarian; do not test health by repeatedly dropping or poking the animal.