Beetles
Beetles were bred and raised in Ancient Times for contests of art and beauty. They ate many cabbages. They still appear in Egypt today and are again to be used in Test of Khefre's Children.
Questions
- Do you have to catch a beetle to make it partly yours, or if you breed others' beetles in your own terrarium will the offspring become yours?
- putting a wild beetle in a terrarium for the first time makes it 100% yours, putting non-owned ones in will make the ownership of new beetles very gradually yours, breeding non-owned beetles with owned beetles mixes the percentages with a tendency to become more yours - see the breeding section below -- FaceAnkh
- Can you breed beetles of different species? - Yes -chisisi
- Does the color equate to the type? - No...I bred two different ones and ended up with white. -chisisi
- Were types known in Ancient Times? Did they have any meaning other than blood (ichor?) lines? - same types in T1 -FaceAnkh
- Does it matter at what time of day they appear? Or will they be so frequent that predicting their appearance isn't worth tracking? - Don't think so... -chisisi. As far as I know they appear entirely at random, and pretty frequently. - Nefer-Bast.
- Were there any other factors (beyond sex/color/type) determining interesting characteristics? (e.g. all the beetles I've found appear to be the same size, so that does not appear to be a factor.) - no -FaceAnkh
- Does the beetle still need to be 90% owned before you can build a statue in the beetle garden?-Yes, it has to be at least '90% yours, or you can't use it.-Jaqx
- Can any trait be obtained from any original wild parent, or are there unique descendent traits defined by the wild type of the originating parent? [Appears can eventually get any from any. --Finkbug]
- Is there a breakdown of genetic traits (e.g. base colour, pattern, spot colour, spot size, spot shape, etc.)? [Never seen it. Would be very difficult possibly impossible to do. --Finkbug]
- Are some of the traits/patterns linked to certain base species?
- Are some traits/patterns sex-linked (i.e. will pass down only to one gender)? Can the other gender be a carrier for such traits, if so? [Never seen any evidence of this T1 or T2. --Finkbug]
- Is there a "tabula rasa" beetle that does not pass on any traits to offspring? [Doubtful. --Finkbug]
- If I start out with beetles 100% owned by others, and never add in any wild beetles, can I eventually reach 90% or more owned by me just through the tendency of beetles I breed to be more "mine" over time? Or do I have to add in wild beetles to get the percentages moving? [Wild or high% beetles will increase ownership much quicker, but are not required --kap0w]
Feeding
- Two beetles eat four cabbage every hour, more if the terrarium is not equipped with a thermometer. -LanaL
Breeding
To breed them, you will need a Beetle Terrarium. It costs
- 3 Sheet Glass
- 3 Linen
- 50 Dirt
You will need lots of cabbage, as well (to feed them). You can also equip your terrarium with a thermometer to make the beetles eat less cabbage.
You can put any amount of beetles into a terrarium, and they will have the option to breed. We are still unsure as to the breeding rates as I had two beetles that bred within an hour and then another time had two that didn't breed within 3 hours. The beetles seem to consume cabbage at a rate of about 2-3 an hour each. Female beetles can have only one offspring during a fixed amount of time, but male beetles can fertilize at any time. Male beetles can "stud" more than one female beetle. In tale 1, it was recommended to have one male and three females in a terrarium for breeding. Don't put too many in or leave them alone too long; from about 15 up they start dying of overcrowding, worsening severely as you approach 30.
Wild beetles remain wild until someone puts them into a terrarium. They then become owned by that player at 100% ownership. When two beetles breed the offspring is given a name like 9364321. Whether there is any signficance to the actual name remains to be seen, but should both parent beetles be 100% ownership the offspring will be 100% as well. A "wild" beetle (burrowing, speckled, plains) that has already been placed in a terrarium is 100% owned by that player, and will therefore be owned 0% by anyone else trying to place it in a terrarium. You can rename beetles, and will find it much easier to keep track of them if you do.
When you get another persons 100% ownership beetle, my understanding is that it will take 4 generations of breeding with your beetles to get a beetle that is of sufficient ownership to enter into Test Of Khefre's Children. In Tale 1, a beetle needed to be 90% owned before it could be shown. Ownership is inherited along with other traits. One parent of X% ownership and another of Y% ownership will result in an offspring with (X+Y)/2 + Z% where Z is some small random number. Tests suggest that Z ~ rand( (X+Y)/20 ). [4 generations is an absurdly optomistic understanding --kap0w]
Exhibiting
To progress in the Test of Khefre's Children, your beetles must be exhibited and win against others in a beetle garden. You exhibit a beetle by building a statue of it in a beetle garden. You may only enter one beetle in a contest per week.
You must win 3 levels of competition to pass the Test, though you need not use the same beetle in all three levels.
The requirements for a beetle statue are:
- 2 mud granite
- 2 small ruby
- 10 concrete
- 20 clay
- 12 gold wire
- 5 paint of each of two colors. It is possible for them to be the same color, and it's common for them to not really be the colors you think your beetle is.
Here's some example requirements so far:
| Beetle Type | Requirements to build sculpture | Notes |
| Male Burrowing Beetle | 2 Mud Granite, 2 Small Ruby, 10 concrete, 20 clay, 12 gold wire, 5 paint:Maroon, 5 paint:Black | |
| Female Burrowing Beetle | 2 Mud Granite, 2 Small Ruby, 10 concrete, 20 clay, 12 gold wire, 5 paint:Maroon, 5 paint:Black | |
| Female Burrowing Beetle | 2 Mud Granite, 2 Small Ruby, 10 concrete, 20 clay, 12 gold wire, 5 paint:Maroon, 5 paint:Black | This one looks different to the one above it |
| Female Burrowing Beetle | 2 Mud Granite, 2 Small Ruby, 10 concrete, 20 clay, 12 gold wire, 5 paint:Olive, 5 paint:Black | This is the 'gold' one |
| Male Beetle | 2 Mud Granite, 2 Small Ruby, 10 concrete, 20 clay, 12 gold wire, 10 paint:Black | Not pure black yet requires 1 paint type |
Breeding notes
I found that 1 beetle of each sex in a selective breeding process (i.e. a nice patterned male mixing up the gene pool with a nice patterned female) left in the terrarium for over 1 real life day will give you a nice mixture of males and females with very little cabbage consumption and a balance of male/female of 55/45 percent. The longer you leave it, the more you get. I got about 10 once. -- Neferneferuaten
See also
See Dr Dave's Beetle Guide for examples of patterns that can be obtained through beetle breeding.