Hi everyone! This is my first time on the iNat forums, so I hope I’m using this right-
I won’t age drop, but I am a minor and I’m primarily interested in beetles (mainly scarabs, I like their unique history). I don’t have a whole lot of money, so these are just recommendations I can keep in the back of my head for when I do.
I live in the southern part of Arizona, if that helps. I need something low/easy maintenance because of my busy schedule and nothing really big. My mom is terrified of large bugs, I’d say bugs in general, and I don’t need to hear her about my future beetle being disgusting or something 
Anything helps, particularly anything LEGAL, especially since every beetle I wanted previously was from outside of the US or really sketchy when it comes to purchasing them.
TYSM!!
~ buglovinkid
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I think the majority of beetles spend most of their lives as larvae. A few adult beetles last more than a year but most have a short adult stage so not ideal as pets. And if your mother is squeamish, the food of scarabs is going to be another level of annoyance to her.
I am not familiar with the beetles of Arizona but if there are any, how about setting up a population of one of your local native chrysomelids that you can collect from the wild? Put your money into a good tank rather than supporting the trade in exotic beetles.
Or, do you have any seasonal lakes in your area, the sort of basin that fills after heavy rain, holds water for a few weeks then is dry for most of the year? Collect a few handfuls of soil from the centre, put it in a tank of water, and you may get mother-pleasing fairy shrimps emerging. Put the tank on a north- facing windowsill so it gets plenty of light but doesn’t over heat. I have no idea how legal that would be. Probably not legal to collect soil from a national park.
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the fairy shrimps do seem pretty nice, I’ll get to looking around as soon as I can but I doubt we’ll have much rain during this season. Leaf beetles, I think would immediately be considered a pest but I’ll push my luck anyways.
Thanks for the advice!
edit: I checked with one of my family members who works with P&R (parks & recreations) here, and she says that it’s legal to collect the water since it’s usually rainwater. I’ll get to it when I can, especially with all this dry heat around
The lakes don’t need to be full of water for you to collect the fairy shrimps. The shrimps have short life cycles and leave long-lived drought-resistant eggs in the mud. So just get some of the dry mud from the deepest part (this is where the water will have lasted the longest and should have the highest density of eggs) and put the mud in a tank of water. I’d try a ratio of 2 cm of mud and 15 cm of water.
The water source may be an issue. Rainwater straight off your roof would be best but it sounds like you might be waiting some time for that. Don’t take water from another pond as it is likely to contain species which will feed on the fairy shrimps. Tapwater could be OK. If you are in a town where water is recycled, your tapwater is probably treated with chlorine, which would be bad for the shrimps. You can get rid of the dissolved chlorine by boiling the tapwater, but that will also get rid of all the other dissolved gases, so you then need to let the water cool and then stir it or shake it to re-oxygenate it.
You could be extravagant and use bottled water but don’t go for springwater with lots of minerals in or fizzy water full of carbon dioxide.
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