Here are a few of my “pet bug” stories. http://www.fluther.com/175653/what-unusual-thing-have-you-found-out-about-spiders-or-bugs/
@Mimishu1995 Here’s a link to one type of beetle pet in Southeast Asia. http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/40067
We’ve kept as pets everything from potato bugs (rolly-pollies) to grasshoppers, caterpillars, and praying mantises. In addition we’ve also had four kinds of spiders- the largest black widow I’ve ever seen, a jumping spider with lovely iridescent green fangs, two enormous wolf spiders, and a tarantula. The tarantula and wolf spiders were called Chainsaw 1, 2, and 3.
I had a neighbor who kept pet ant lions in his bedroom and numerous colonies of ants in gallon pickle jars under his cherry tree.
I don’t know if this qualifies as a pet bug, but when I was a child there was a species of june bug that doubled quite well as a piece of jewelry because they’d stick to your clothes and not move once you put them somewhere. We’d place them on our clothes and pretend we were grand ladies at a ball. They were a gorgeous golden brown, and when we picked them up, they’d make this raspy protesting noise. We called them “cuss bugs”.
I spent many summers on my grandfather’s ranch in Southern Utah. For some reason honey bees were attracted to the grain used to feed his cattle, and if they got too much grain dust on them, they’d lose the ability to fly. My cousins and I would catch them by their wings, and wetting a bit of our tee-shirt, we’d rub their bottoms on the wet spot until their stingers came out. Then we could safely play with our “pets” until we were distracted by other fun things to do (Yeah I know. Don’t start. We were mean little kids.)
Years ago I had a friend who kept a baby bird eating spider (the kind that grows to bird eating size). Spiders only eat live food (it must be moving). His had grown large enough he had to start feeding it live baby mice. He said that feeding it was right out of a horror film.