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If you are looking for Flour Beetles to feed your dart frogs, fish or reptiles, then you probably have become as confused as the Confused Flour Beetle because there are a couple beetles that are often confused with each other.  There is the (Tribolium confusum) and the Red Flour Beetle(Tribolium castaneum), also known as the “Rice Flour Beetle.

Both the Confused Flour Beetle and The Rice Flour Beetle are from the Darkling Beetle family that includes Mealworms and Superworms.

The difference between rice flower and confused flower and are in how many clubs they have on their antennae.  Rice Flour Beetles have 3 clubs and Confused Flour Beetles have 4.  Other than that, they look the same.  They are the same reddish color and they are both about the same size which is 1/8″ to 1/4″ in length.

We raise Rice Flour Beetles in brown rice flour and we raise Confused Flour Beetles in Confused Flour.  Just kidding.  We raise and breed our Confused friends in whole wheat flour.

The Confused Flour Beetle and Red Rice Beetle are easy to culture and breed.  You simply place some adults in bedding and use a secure mesh lid, with a screen small enough to keep beetles and larvae in the container and that is it.  Both like it on the warm side to breed well, so keeping Confused Beetles and Red Rice Beetles warm, about 80 Degrees, will reward you will plenty of beetles to feed your frogs and small reptiles and amphibians.

We use 32 ounce culture cups with fabric lids for our breeding containers.  We start with about an inch of medium and then add an inch every month as the beetles colonize the bedding.  We split the cultures when they we fill the culture cup up about 3/4’s of the way.  One culture, filled 3/4’s of the way up can start 3 to 4 new cultures.