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Voted Best Answer
Mar 25, 2021 - 11:03 AM
The main cause of pupa not emerging from pupation not completely formed (or irregularly) is not enough water or food before they enter pupation. When you get them make sure they have plenty of grain and sliced carrots, and that the carrots are replaced at least every 3 days. They don't eat for a very long time while in pupation so they need to build up their energy stores in order to survive through to becoming a beetle at the other end.
You may want to purchase medium-sized worms which are available on our website; you can ensure that they have had adequate nutrition right up until pupation and won't go those few days in travel to you hungry while they're shipped.
In our opinion, you should put this little pupa out of its misery humanely by placing it in the freezer for an hour. Thank you so much, I hope this helps!
In our opinion, you should put this little pupa out of its misery humanely by placing it in the freezer for an hour. Thank you so much, I hope this helps!
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I have the same problem and my worms always have several kinds of veggies cleaned daily. I'm beyond frustrated.
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Maybe try separating them to ensure they do not compete heavily for food and about the pain problem mealworms according to studies have pain receptors but not quite similar to humans and during the pupa stage pain receptors may be turned off as I imagine your own insides changing at a rapid pace would be quite painful so no they might not be feeling pain similar to how caterpillars don't in their own pupa stage.
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What you are looking at is part of the body fat and/or the GI tract emerging through an improperly formed pupa exoskeleton.
https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-023-00945-x/figures/2
It is very common for pupae to be malformed when the larvae are not hydrated enough or fed a proper diet leading up to pupation, when they store body fat. Please be sure to feed them wheat bran that has not been chemically treated, and fresh carrots at all times for a water source.
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