What are these small black beetles (live) among dried mealworms?

[bhex]

Hello all,

Today when I opened my dried mealworm container to give some to my king quails I noticed a lot of movement. Among the dried and very dead mealworms were these tiny black beetles crawling around and even climbing out, and I have no idea what they are! There were quite a lot of them, actually. Can anyone identify them from these photos? They're quite small and slim, about 6 millimeters in length, they have a greenish sheen and small antennae.

Are these mealworms still safe to feed to my quails or has this batch been contaminated? I keep the lid closed at all times except when I take out some worms for feeding, so these beetles must have been there since I bought these few months ago, but I only just now saw these!

I would appreciate any help, thank you in advance.

 

[MommyGirl]

Maybe some type of weevils!

 

[bhex]

Maybe some type of weevils!

Thanks for your response! I have no idea what weevils do or what they are. Mostly wondering if these mealworms are still safe for the quails to eat or if I should toss them.

 

[MommyGirl]

Weevils will eat the mealworms and leave nothing but the outer shell of them but they should still be ok to feed if there is anything left of them

 

[Beaker99]

Weevils. No biggie. I freeze my flour and rice to prevent them in my food.

 

[Genene]

When my grandson had a Leopard Gecko he fed live mealworms. If kept to long the matured into black beetles.

 

[Painted Calls]

When my grandson had a Leopard Gecko he fed live mealworms. If kept to long the matured into black beetles.

Those are mealworm beetles. They always surprise you the first time seeing them. They did me anyway.

These are grain weevils. Harmless amd safe to feed, but will eat all the good parts out of whatever they've infested.

 

[Becweb]

Hello all,

Today when I opened my dried mealworm container to give some to my king quails I noticed a lot of movement. Among the dried and very dead mealworms were these tiny black beetles crawling around and even climbing out, and I have no idea what they are! There were quite a lot of them, actually. Can anyone identify them from these photos? They're quite small and slim, about 6 millimeters in length, they have a greenish sheen and small antennae.

Are these mealworms still safe to feed to my quails or has this batch been contaminated? I keep the lid closed at all times except when I take out some worms for feeding, so these beetles must have been there since I bought these few months ago, but I only just now saw these!

I would appreciate any help, thank you in advance.

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Everytime I order mealworms from this one place I have numerous of these black bugs. They hide easily so you won't always see them at first. I learned to look for them if I need to buy from that particular place. They don't effect feeding your mealworms to quails. I think they harm the mealworms by feeding on them because when those black bugs are shipped I see a lot of dead black mealworms I don't otherwise see. I've finally decided I won't buy from that seller moving forward because these bugs are also slick at getting out of bin too. I feed my worms to ducks and chick's with no issue don't see why you would with quail.

 

[raingarden]

Aren't those the darkling beetles that lay the mealworm eggs? Look like them. You can't grow mealworms without them.

 

[Painted Calls]

Aren't those the darkling beetles that lay the mealworm eggs? Look like them. You can't grow mealworms without them.

Yes, they're a species of Darkling!