Lesser mealworm
The lesser mealworm is a small, shiny black or brown beetle, only about 6 millimetres long. Its larvae are little yellow-brown worms that look like small mealworms. It loves warm, damp places like chicken houses and grain stores.
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Fun facts
Its larvae are allowed as food for people in the European Union, and they are also fed to animals.
A female usually lays 200 to 400 eggs, but sometimes up to 2000.
In the wild it lives in caves and in the nests of birds and mice.
The larvae chew through wood and insulation in chicken houses to find a safe place to change into beetles.
It is most active at dusk and at night.
Most asked questions about Lesser mealworm
?Is the lesser mealworm harmful?
Not to people directly, but it is a pest in chicken houses and grain stores and can carry germs.
?Can you eat lesser mealworms?
Yes. The larvae are approved as food in the European Union and are also used as animal feed.
?How big is the lesser mealworm?
The beetle is about 6 millimetres long and the larva up to 11 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Alphitobius diaperinus
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Tenebrionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Tenebrionidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Litter beetle
Where the facts come from
- Alphitobius diaperinus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Udo Schmidt from Deutschland. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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