micro mealworms

my friend just sent me a shipment of lobster nymphs to feed my babie scorps and i guess he threw in some of what he called "micro mealworms" in with them. to give the reader an idea of their size, the adult darkling beatles are about 5mm from head to tail. from what i understand, these are somewhat rare, and i have never kept mealworms, and so do not want to lose these little guys. does anybody know anything about them? does their care differ from that of their larger counterparts? any suggestions?

You are probably talking about Tribolium species. I've got now T. castaneum and T. confusum. You can keep them in the same way as Tenebrio molitor ('standard' mealworm), but they need highier temperature (around 35 degrees C). They grow and pupate extremelly fast. Whole developement lasts 20 days, and adults can live for almost 2 years (producing during that time eggs, eggs and eggs...). This is nice feeder for small spiders and predacerous beetles.

i keep something like that

my brother bought some Gut Load that was infested with these little guys

i've heard of common named, flour beetles that are like this.

if you look at the larvas, they should be covered in short hairs.

i've read that the edible substrate these guys are normally kept on gets trapped in the bristles, so you should drop the larvas from a little height to shake most of the excess substrate off, otherwise you are more likely to get mold in your cages.

this is what i feed stuff that looks like it might be too little to catch wingless fruit flies

Tenebrio obscurus is a darkling species gaining popularity because of it's small size, this may be what you have. Not as tiny as Tribolium, but much smaller than T. molitor.

Wade

In Europe also Alphitobius species are kept as feeder for vertebrates and invertebrates.