Costs to keep

How much will it roughly cost you to keep an individual Blue death feigning beetle well including the setup and ongoing costs, this does not include unexpected vet bills or the rising cost of products over time.

Used for energy calculation : https://www.sust-it.net/energy-calculator.php

Distribution - 

They are found throughout the south western coast and all the way through into new mexico

The images below taken from google maps shows a snapshot of part of the distribution called Borrego Springs and palm springs respectivly, from this you can tell the enviroment that they live is very dry and sandy with shrubs scattered and mountains in the distance.

Rating - (Ease of care) - Intermediate - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Setup Requirements - I would advise to atlease have 30x30 floor space for 1-3 indeviduals and up to 6 in a 30x50 floor space. These top opening terrariums below are great for co-habbing with desert hairy scorps as they are quite defensive you can keep your hands away from there stinger.

Substrate options and decor - For substrate you dont need anything fancy just a desert like mix, this can be just a excavator clay and sand mix, see below for some options. Also you can use the excavator clay to sculpt the enclosure out to make hinding spaces for the beetles. For decor offer atleast 2-3 hiding spaces around so hides are an essential also i would suggest geting some peices of Mopani wood they make great centre peices for the beetles to climb round and the dry habitat keeps the wood in good condition.

Heating and lighting - If you keep your room in the low- mid 20s during the day and let it dip at night 5 degrees you dont really need any add additional heating for these, If you require heating then use a 25w dimmer bulb on a far sid of the enclosure to allow for a heat gradient.

Here is some additional information on there weather conditions within there distributions, using inaturalist i have picked one of the places that they are naturally found within there distribution as an example and below is there yearly temp averages. The place i picked is called

Humidity -

Keep the relative humidity between 10-40% as much as you can, they can die quite easy if they are subjected to prolonged exposure to high humidities, you dont really need to offer water to them as they get all the water they need from there diet. At the most spray one corner once every month lightly to emulate dew on the side of the enclosure.

Diet and nutrition -

These beetles have a fairly simple diet, you dont need to over complicate it. The majority of the time you can offer Beetle Jelly pots weekly  and on occasion put a dish of deceased dried soldier flys on a dish, this keeps the beetles protean levels up and also offers other nutritional benifits that the jelly pots do not, you can substitute the soldier flies for crickets that will bring down smaller ones themselfs. Also on occasion every other week put a peice of carrot, potato or other vegitables in for them to munch on for additional nutrition.

Behaviours -

These facinating little beetles are brilliant to watch they are Diurnal so they spend the majority of the day plodding around the enclosure looking for food and exporing. On occasion they will pack together in a group and hide usually during the night time under decor and rocks. They will also activly hand around the Hairy desert blonde scorpion which i assume is a behavior for the beetle to feel more protected as the scorpions dont mind them what so every.

For how easy they are to keep and how little maintanance they require they are a great little beetle to keep. They all seem to have there own personalities and some will do there own little rituals such as climbing up certain rocks while others compleatly avoid certain parts of the enclosure.

Day and night Cycle -

The standard day and night cycle of 12 hours works well you dont really need to do anything else as ambient light of a room during the day and night works well however if you would like to further your husbandry to mimic there actual day and night cycle within there range please see below. Winter months of October to March have between 10-11 hours of daylight while Summer months range between 12-14 hours.

Common health issues -

Humidity based issues

Rotting Limbs-

Wild caught issues -

Cleaning -  Spot clean any dead husks of insects and replace the substrate yearly at most, as they are a desert species they do not have issues with mold and other water caused issues, i would suggest 

Brumation

Avalability - They are fairly common in the UK hobby, very few are captive bred as they are extreamly hard at current times to get to breed in captivity so they are unfortunatly brought in a few times a year in batches. It would be nice to see some people perfecting the captive breeding of these beetles to stop taking from the wild populations. People researching and getting the husbandy correct to there natural distributions is the first step towards this.

References-

Gallery -

Enjoy The Guide, have some feedback, feel free to comment and rate below.