Blapylis Darkling Beetle

The Blapylis Darkling Beetle is a smallish species with nice texturing on the elytra and a notable longitudinal groove where the fused elytra meet. I suppose I should refer to them as a medium sized species since we do offer some “micro” species on the site now.

New to the site as of 3/24/2025!

We highly recommend them as tankmates for blue death feigning beetles or other desert beetles. Body length is usually about 1/2 of an inch or slightly larger, but they are tallish and round and have a bulky look to them vs Argoporis, and the like which have a lower profile. 3/4 to 1 inch on average and with the legs they look even larger.

$6 each, unsexed.

Many keepers keep a jelly cup (related products, below) in the tank with them to provide a source of food that lasts a week or so and doesn’t spoil. Alternatively, some people spoon out just a bit of this jelly into a cup or on top of a flat rock and keep the remainder of the jelly cup in the fridge. Otherwise, they are not picky eaters and we feed them mainly with fish food pellets (they love protein-based pet foods…see related links below) and bits of fruit or vegetable. It is best if you remove the peel on any produce as they are potentially very sensitive to pesticides that are used during growing (including organic pesticides).

See photos of this species on bugguide.net.

Tank set up and care video from my YouTube channel…