Random Pet Family Appreciation Thread 30: Beetles!

[Wassa]

Former threads:
Moths - Warp Stalkers - Crocolisks - Monkeys - Wolves - Core Hounds - Wasps - Dragonhawks - Turtles - Boars - Carrion Birds - Bears - Serpents - Tallstriders - Worms - Dogs - Ravagers - Shale Spiders - Sporebats - Spirit Beasts - Birds of Prey - Scorpids - Chimaeras - Bats - Crabs - Foxes - Devilsaurs - Rhinos - Hyenas

Random pet family appreciation thread is where I roll a random pet family every week for everyone to share their pictures, their stories, their love for that pet family. Please no hate or rants. This is an appreciation thread. If you dislike the family, don't post! Hopefully with some love we can get some hunters to try out new pets they never would have thought to tame before.

Our 30th family is the adamant beetle family!


Image from WoW TCG.

Beetle facts

~Beetles became a tameable family in Cataclysm. Beetles have been in the game as silithid scarabs since Vanilla.

~Beetles have 15 skin colors.

~Silithid Harvester is the only beetle family rare. He also has a skin color unique to him.

~While beetles have no other unique named members besides Silithid Harvester, a few beetles are unique skins that are tameable only in an instance or in a phased area. These are silithidscarabskingold, silithidscarabskinwhite, uldumscarabskinblue, uldumscarabskingreen, uldumscarabskinpurple, uldumscarabskinred, uldumscarabskinteal.

~Beetles have three different color changers.

~Temple Scarab used to be a color changer. Now it has a skin unique to it.

~Sand Scarab is a new beetle minipet from a WoW TCG loot card.

~Corpse Scarabs are one of the most unique beetles. Spawned during Anub'Rekhan boss fight in Naxxramas, these beetles where at first extremely tiny when tamed. While this has been fixed, they are still smaller than normal beetles, leave a black steak behind them as they move, have a huge Harden Carapace graphic, and have a "gliding" run animation. A collection of pictures of when the beetle used to be very tiny can be seen here: http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10862

~Silithid Harvester used to be a green ant silithid before he was tameable. He was one of the four beasts from the Barrens the dropped starting quest items and the only one that survived the Shattering. The other three where Lakota'mani, Owatanka and Washte Pawne. He no longer drops the starting quest item when killed.

[Melentari]

Oh how I love my beetles. It started, actually, when I was levelling a Tauren Paladin and went to Tanaris. I reached the point in the quests where I guided a beetle into the silithid hive to blow it up and I realised just how pretty those blue beetles were. The next day, I went out and tamed one, naming it Plink. The next one I tamed was one of the amethyst beetles from Uldum, and that one is named Boing. Now, I can't get rid of either one. Plink and Boing are a pair and I'm never letting them go.

The next one I fell in love with was Highwing's yellow beetle from Un'Goro, whom I've written about here before. His name is Buttercup, and I always feel a little wrong if he's not in Highwing's call pet slots, even with her pretty new Uldum beetle named Filigree. I'm even currently levelling a hunter so he can go tame the Silithid Harvester from the Barrens.

Beetles are a family that has captivated me against my will, and I'm actually perfectly fine with that!

[GormanGhaste]

Mia's portrait of my brown silithid beetle, Blossom:


I originally tamed Blossom at the beginning of Cataclysm as a placeholder until I could tame the blue-green scarab beetle. Needless to say, I never tamed the scarab, and Blossom ended up becoming my favorite pet this expansion, influencing everything from other pets in my stable to my transmog outfit.

I have a lot of other beetle colors on my alts. Looking forward to the orange and white silithid beetle skins being easier to tame in MoP.

[Miacoda]

I have one beetle!

My troll, Kilalan, who has the super power of bonding with beasts I've never been able to bond with before, decided to tame an Emerald Scarab. I didn't plan to keep him at first, I just wanted something different until Kilalan could eventually get a dragon turtle, but then his name came along...
I had been thinking of names to give him and one day I was running around with him and I noticed what cute little sounds his legs made when he ran around. they sounded almost like tap shoes! So I decided to name him Tapdance, and I've just fallen in love. He's just so adorable! <3

[GormanGhaste]

Oh, Tapdance has such striking eyes!

[Mozag]

When beetles first came out, I admit I wasn't terribly excited by the normal models, even though the colours are quite charming and vibrant. My eyes were instantly drawn to the gorgeous new scarab beetle models, and I swore that I would be taming those instead. I tried several versions of them on different hunters, and only one has stuck, for now. My three most loved beetles are old models. Go figure.



And finally, my favourite beetle. Dismember was another "Oh it's red, better tame it then." pet after my race-change, and I remember how frustrating it was trying to get him to spawn. In the end, I was naked, beating the crypt horrors with my fists, in a desperate hope not to kill them before the red bug appeared. At long last I succeeded, and Dis has been vying for top tanking spot with my warpie Possessed since then. Now that specs can be changed so easily, my warp stalker will be going mainly dps, and Dis will remain the sole tank, while dabbling in some damage too now and then. He's surprisingly shy and gentle for such a hardy creature, and he has a top spot in Mozag's stables forever.

[Holgarr]

My beetle was a rather spur-of-the-moment tame, actually.

Khepri is one of the uniquely-colored Amethyst Scarabs from a very particular bit of the Uldum playthrough, obtainable nowhere else after turning in the quest ("Just a Fancy Cockroach") that spawns them in Obelisk of the Stars.

At the time, I didn't know that, I just knew I thought the vivid purple hue was quite interesting. Good thing I didn't abandon her before learning of her uniqueness, else she'd never be obtainable again. (at least I think so - I've seen comments on WoWhead suggesting unphased versions of the four beetle colors now exist for those who wish to tame them post-quest.)

[Mozag]

My beetle was a rather spur-of-the-moment tame, actually.

Khepri is one of the uniquely-colored Amethyst Scarabs from a very particular bit of the Uldum playthrough, obtainable nowhere else after turning in the quest ("Just a Fancy Cockroach") that spawns them in Obelisk of the Stars.

At the time, I didn't know that, I just knew I thought the vivid purple hue was quite interesting. Good thing I didn't abandon her before learning of her uniqueness, else she'd never be obtainable again. (at least I think so - I've seen comments on WoWhead suggesting unphased versions of the four beetle colors now exist for those who wish to tame them post-quest.)

You are able to tame them post-quest, or even pre-quest, when the beetles are phased out. You simply have to throw an Ice Trap in that area, and wait for one of the phased beetles to wander into it and appear. I did this with Moll, but obviously started from the wrong end of the room and phased out ever colour before finally getting the one I wanted!

[Nick]

I actually tamed one of the turquoise scarabs on my main hunter and he was my baby tanking boy for a long while (that black dragon that flies around with a huge chunk cut out of his health and drops a quest item? Little Sefu tanked him like an absolute pro and there were no slip-ups at all. I don't even think he dropped below 50% health during the fight).

I had to let him go because of stable restrictions however, though I am thinking of finding him again because I'm starting to miss that tanky little chitterbug.

[Lupis]

Somehow this passed me by completely and I only just found it.

Rassaa has a beetle that I'm quite fond of, in a quite way. Her white beetle is named Rattlebone, and he's a wonderful little thing, though I don't use tank pets as much as I feel like I should on her. Then again, I don't really play her as much as I feel I should. xD Ah well. Rattle has still given me an appreciation of the beetle pet, which I hated at first.

[Kalhoun]

Yay beetles! For a while I was totally beetle obsessed. I tamed all of the scarab models, and even had this as my signature here...



I don't even know why I love them so much. Maybe it's the way they walk, or their round shapes, or the way they look side to side.... no idea. I like them all; I haven't really bonded to a particular one.

For a long time, Kal's main tank was Gertie, a red scarab.



Now Kal has a brown scarab named Rumble. The brown matches his transmog better.



My little alt, Kaeshen, has the rare beetle from the Barrens (still unnamed). It doesn't really match him, but that's ok, his armor doesn't all match either. Eventually I'll pick up one that suits him better.

[Finduilas]

Merowen, my level 80 huntress has a beetle. Porthos follows her around since she had been questing in Tanaris and she simply couldn't kill this cute animal with the beautiful color. He matches her other Musketeer pets, Artagnan, Athos and Aramis. Together these 4 were the pets I only used while leveling. Artagnan (wasp) and Aramis (parrot) were her pvp pets and Athos (cat) and Porthos her pve pets. They all made me go for a turqoise stable theme for her. Now she's 80 and doesn't level anymore I hardly use Porthos, only when doing dailies. Also the pvp members of her stable don't see the light anymore, because even after sitting in the queue for over an hour no bg ever popped up. Also her cats and spirit beasts are now almost useless and I find myself considering to level her further up once mop is live. It's really sad that they even removed the "random lichking heroic" - queue mode. I can only do a dungeon once a day now with her. All in all Blizz makes me sad. What's so wrong with staying at one level if you like it? Don't introduce such things as level stop if you don't support it.
Anyway I didn't want to make this a rant, it just annoys me so much.