Eddy Baumann
Mulberry Avenue School
Mealworm Report

The mealworm is an animal in the insect family. So it has six legs and two wings. The mealworm's scientific name is tenebrio beetle ( Tenebrio molitor). They are found in dark , damp places. They eat grains and they use plants for water. Like most insects the meatworm goes through metamorphosis.

The first stage of the life cycle starts with the egg. The egg is white and oval shaped. The mother lays up to five hundred eggs. The eggs are one millimeter long. They usually hatch in about two week. After they hatch they go into the second stage.
The second stage is the larvae stage of the beetle and when the beetle is called a mealworm. The mealworms are about one inch long, dark yellow and have pinchers. They have six legs. They eat grain. The ones that I observed ate oatmeal. One of the mealworms I observe moved around a lot, but in one day it calmed down. They shed, or molt about five to seven times. This means that the exoskeleton falls off and mealworm has grown. It sheds because the mealworm needs room to grow and the exoskeleton will not grow with it. Then the mealworm stops moving and goes into its pupa stage.

The third stage of the beetle is the pupa stage. The pupa stage is when the beetle does the most metamorphosis. The pupa doesn't move but when touched it might move. Inside the pupa, the mealworm body is turning into a beetle body. The pupa is about one inch and is white. The pupa cracks open and the final stage begins, the beetle comes out.
In the adult stage the beetle comes out of the pupa and is white. It becomes dark, dark brown. If it is a female it will lay eggs in seven to ten weeks. The beetle does not fly, it hops ten to twelve centimeters at a jump. It does use its wings to glide. The beetle eats grains and bodies of dead insects. After the beetles mate, the female lays the eggs and dies.
I learned that the mealworm metamorphosis three times until it reaches it's full size. Also the tenebrio beetle's ( Tenebrio molitor) famous name is mealworm. I enjoyed doing this report. Finally here is the classification of the beetle.
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Arthropoda
Classes - Insecta

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Indoor Insect

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HTML by Eddy Baumann
Icon by Norma and Pilar