JAM BEETLES 101: A Complete Care Guide

Jam Beetles are a gargantuan arthropod species.

ENVIRONMENT: Airborne Jam Beetles don’t require large enclosures beyond their physical size, although they are a burrowing species and prefer to have tunnel-like enclosures approximately 20 feet in diameter.

AIR: They prefer an air-breathing environment of 50% Nitrogen, 48% Oxygen, with 2% Sulfur, although 5% variants of Nitrogen and Oxygen are possible as long as the Sulfur remains higher than 2%.

DIET: Jam Beetles require a diet mainly consisting of mushrooms, decaying plant-matter, protein, fat, and cuticle, with salted water available to them at all times. They are picky eaters and will only eat certain types of plants and arthropods, and can tell immediately if something is awry with their food and simply won’t eat.

EGG STAGE: Wild Female Jam Beetles will lay their eggs and protect them beneath their massive wings, burrowing underground for safety. These eggs will remain until they hatch, a period of about 12 weeks. At the 11th week, the Mother Jam Beetle would begin to seek out large sources of above-ground food.

LARVAL STAGE: After they hatch, a wild mother Jam Beetle would protect her young while they spend the next 40 weeks feeding and growing, spending her time burrowing small holes and coating their sides with ‘Jam’ that she has scraped off of her wings, which then slowly bake and harden.

POD STAGE: Eventually once they are large enough, the young larvae will seek out the pods that their mother has created in the ground and enter, sealing themselves in. After they have all done this, their Mother will leave in search of a new mate. The new Jam Beetles will hatch in 72 weeks.

BREEDING: Once they have broken their pod casings, a Jambeetle is considered mature. Mating is tricky; as the more colorful male Jam beetles cannot be housed together lest they fight, so it is best to select a single good male for a breeding population and to cull the unneeded ones as a food source.

Making of The DUG DEEP PODCAST

“Hello, is this thing on?

Hey- I’m Marvin. Don’t know if anyone can hear me, but… don’t care. Finally got this stupid thing working. Anyone out there?

… I guess I’ll just… ya know… get this off my chest: my friends died. I… they were good friends, but death is common here. Nobody really cares, but… I do, and I guess I’d like to reach out to anyone out there who needs a friend.

… I played a cool game recently… seen plenty of movies… hear lots of good songs… I’m happy to talk about ‘em….

Um… not that I can ask you about what you’d want to hear about, heh…

Oh, I know what to talk about! If you’re out there and want to hear about it, take a seat, fine person. Know that I love you. Know that you’re awesome for listening in, and maybe we can each help each other feel less alone. I don’t know about you, but I’m old enough that my old man was one of the people who came to this new world. He says that’s why he named me ‘Marvin’, heh, his sense of humor. He used to tell me stories of the old world… used to talk about how the people in charge were killing the world, how them being in power was a terrible thing. All the people who weren’t in charge… they were left to rot and fight each other to survive, and most of them were stupid enough to do so. The only salvation for people was the Great Library, and everyone had access to the whole thing, and because of it people could call other people lazy for watching it too much all the time. Squabbles and fights over every little thing; life is simpler here; better. I gotta admit: life is good. So… thanks, old man.

Anyway, when our new overlords came, we brought our libraries with us, so now we’re all here, and we still have the Great Library, and everything in it, and life is good. It’s kinda cool looking at how the Old World used to look. Crazy it was, according to the Enrichment.”

HUMANS 101: A Complete Care Guide

Humans are a squishy species of meat and fat, with calcium-based skeletons beneath. This fat and meat-like exterior gives them very fine touch sensory and motor skills without needing to be submerged in water at all times. In fact, they are a social, air-breathing species.

ENVIRONMENT: Humans enjoy a larger enclosure, usually a good 2000 square feet per human at a minimum. Be sure to provide them with soft surfaces, other humans for company, and lots of enrichment. They must also have within their enclosures large amount of very-low-salt or salt-free water, as well as a perfumed salt and fat based solid for cleaning themselves and their belongings. This source of water may also double as enrichment and exercise for your humans.

ENRICHMENT: Humans have a large library of enrichment for their own use and entertainment, although forms of exercise or general play with other humans will do as well. Ensure that you limit the Enrichment Library so that a human does not try to rely solely on their non-exercise forms of enrichment, lest they easily lose time in their periods of sleeping.

AIR: It should be noted that it is easy to poison or kill a human by having the wrong balance of substances in their air, so keep their air at good quality with 78% Nitrogen, and 21% Oxygen. Ensure that their air suits provide this as well.

DIET: Humans require a diet of fiber, protein, fats, and sugars, and salt, with very lightly salted water available to them at all times. Humans will eat or drink anything that doesn’t cause them discomfort or do immediate harm.

SLEEPING: Sleep is normal for humans. They are not dead, nor injured, but simply unconscious and allowing their brains to rest and process information and stresses they have been exposed to in the times they were awake. Humans roughly require about 8 to 12 hours of a 24 hour cycle to sleep, however every human is different. Monitor your humans carefully and ensure that they are getting enough sleep to avoid fights or injuries.

BREEDING: Once they are mature, Humans like to breed and do so at any season, and often with any other humans, however it takes a male (see index) and a female (see index) in order to create more humans naturally, so to avoid new unwanted humans, simply keep males and females apart. You may notice humans fighting off unwanted attempts at breeding by an aggressor (even in all male or all female groups). If this occurs, it is recommended that the aggressor be culled to avoid issues. This is not because the victim breeder doesn’t want to breed, but simply because they did not find the aggressor to be a suitable mate. If left unattended, likely the human population will cull these aggressors for you, but by doing so can ultimately disrupt the peace among themselves and don’t work as well for a season at least.

TRAINING AND WORK: Humans are built to recognize patterns, and are thus very easily trainable and often train each other to do tasks if there is a newcomer. Therefore, it’s very easy to program a human population and this programming won’t be disrupted as long as you keep your human populations in good condition. If you must train a human, you are to walk them through the process and show them the cause/effect of each step, and to use simple, positive human messages, high-pitched whistles, or small items or sugar treats for good behavior.