So I found this cute little leaf-footed bug (its species is Piezogaster calcarator earlier and I was holding it and playing with it outside and I tried to put it on an Orange day-lily then it got some pollen on it but it didn’t want to go onto the flower. And I put it on some plants and let go of it. I went back outside hours later and found the same exact one with the pollen marks on it, on the same exact spot on its body and I played with it again. I decided to keep it as a pet but how do I take care of it well? I put some moss, dandelion leaves, thistle leaves, White clover flowers (I don’t know if these insects care about them but I just put them there so that it can have something to climb on) and some twigs in its terrarium. It likes climbing on the clover flowers and the twigs but what else should I put in there for it? And I was wondering, do they eat Mock strawberry? I have so many of their berries around my house. Do they feed on the nectar of Philadelphia fleabanes? So many of those flowers are around my house right now too. What are some other plants common around this time of year in Ohio that they like to eat? Some photos of it in the terrarium.
Hi! Not a professional or anything, but your bug is in the family Coreidae, and they typically feed on sap from plants (not flowers/nectar). There isn’t much information about this species or genus’s diet though. Here you can see some of the plants these bugs have been seen on (not necessarily feeding on them though).
So it would be better to give it different leaves and stems instead of flowers.
Another thing to consider is that a terrarium life might not be the best life for this bug. It can be hard to create the perfect habitat indoors, but the perfect habitat already exists outside! If you let it go, it will be able to find the right food on its own. Also, this bug is an adult, which means it is probably looking for a mate. It might find a mate in your garden, lay eggs, and leave behind babies that you can see in the future.
These aren’t found in exotic pet husbandry, so it may be difficult to find out what these bugs need. You may have luck with gardening/pest control sites, but I am only finding info on Leptoglossus.
I’ll still put some flowers anyway so that it can climb up on them. But do they eat grape leaves? There is a grape plant that is outside for some reason and I saw one of these bugs fly onto it before. Do they eat bluegrass? I saw them on that too.
Not sure about feeding, but for a lot of sap feeders, they may use the plant’s own movement of sap to help them feed. So I don’t know if a picked plant which is drying out and likely not transporting sap under the same pressure will be effective as food.
It has been my pet for a few days now and it has been doing good, so I think it is effective.