That's not the problem I'm having, Pescado. The beetles are there... they have map tags. I just can't see them. And having successfully done this quest before, I'm familiar with the beetle-catching tricks mentioned earlier in this thread.

And yeah, Treeag, I'm up-to-date on patches. In fact I wasn't having this problem BEFORE the recent patches.

I have had same problem. I have no mods or custom content. I had to scroll around area until my cursor had the star symbol and when i clicked it, I had the option to "catch". That is how i caught the assassin beetles.
Editing to say that I scrolled around the map tags, sorry new poster.

I completed the Flame Fruit quest. I had to wait until my next trip to Eygpt for the bushes to spawn more Flame Fruit to harvest. I also had no problems with the Red Assassin beetles.

Srikandi, I have a Sim from Niua Simoa in China at the moment and he's finally caught his first red assassin bug.

I can never get the ones near the barn to show, the map tag is there, but the bugs aren't. But they did show on three other spawn sites.

I'm using the WA-specific Niua Simoa, though, not the base-game compatible one. Not sure whether that could make a difference...

Thanks... still not sure what the problem I was having was :/ I've verified that I am seeing beetles in other locations, so it's not just a simple graphics display issue. Anyway I've changed to a different family in a different neighborhood now, we'll see if the issue comes up with them.

Two things can cause beetles to be present, but invisible. If you have recently been moving the camera around, it may take time for the graphics to cache and load, until which you will see nothing. If you have paused the game and waited, and they still do not appear, the other culprit is a bad censor-blur hack that hacks the effects file, causing the beetle effects not to appear.

okay heres what i solved. i didnt have any mosaic mods but still the bug didnt show up. someone said here that it took some time for the bug to appear so i just hovered my mouse over the empty ground and they'd give me this option to catch. i still can't see the bug i caught it.

I can rule out both of those, unfortunately. There's something else going on. I did eventually manage to get the "catch" icon over an invisible bug, though :p

I had the same problem there for Awhile i had 4 locations of the bugs show up i caught 2 out of the 4 the other 2 he dropped but then no more bug signs showed up so i finished my remaining to days at china then went home when i came back there was about 3 more locations clicked one there was the bugs now have all 3...but i did find when i clicked to go to the location id have to zoom right in and wait until the bugs showed up

Today's adventure called for finding Red Assassin bugs so I went to the locations shown on the tags. There were bugs at all of them but by the time my Sim arrived they had disappeared underground. This happened in all tagged locations.

I was sending my Sim to the location and then clicking on the bugs to "Catch Bugs" but they would disappear before she could catch them. BUT I found that if I could get my Sim to the tag site while the bugs were still showing, AND I refrained from cueing my Sim to catch them, my Sim would (after a brief pause) autonomously catch the Red Assassin bugs herself. This happened in every tag location and for all the RA bugs needed (I think it was three). It did not take long to finish this task.

My advice is to wait and see if your Sim wants to catch the bugs by themselves. Worked for me.

You direct you're sim over to the area the game tells you the bugs are and they should pop up when you're sim is close to the area. It worked for me.

Oh and I also have a fast money making tip that fairly has to do with getting things for people. Use the object tags to you're advantige. For example: I got the 2 assasin bugs I needed but I didn't turn them in until I had every assasin bug in china. Then I went to turn in my 2. And I still had 3 leftover assasin bugs! Then I kept one of the bugs and donated the other 2 to the science lab when I got back to Sunset Valley. I earned about 2,000 simolians.

I have noticed a difference in China. Before the update you could magicaly grab into the ground and get a Beatle, since the update your sims hand will not break the ground level so it takes much longer. I plan 3 days alone for catching them and it doesnt always happen, but I level fishing while I wait then click on all the bugs when the spawn comes up and only get 1 if any.

I will try Bunnylips method, I had stopped playing the Adventures.

I had the same problem except mine went a little deeper. I couldnt see fire or any bugs at all. Wierd stuff was missing from the game and my floor traps were not showing effects. Well someone replied that it is probably be cause of your verson of nomosiac. So i clicked on his link and downloaded the updated one and as soon as I got back on Behold There WAS A RED BUG!! I dont know who was the creater of my first blur remover thingy but turns out that was my problem. A if you don't hear cricket like noises where the red bugs are supposed to be it might be your problem too. :D

I've been reading and all of you say that the map indicates the place where the bugs should be
I need to catch five of 'em for my job as scientific, but the map does not point me out where they are, I didn't even know it had to show me where they are.
So I'm confused!!
How am I supposed to find 'em?

Under Life Time Rewards, you can buy The Collection Helper. It costs a lot of points, but it can really help in finding insects (butterflies and insects), gems, etc. When you buy The Collection Helper, it goes into the Sim's inventory and looks like a large orange butterfly. You click on it, pick the collection that you want to collect, and then go to the map view. It shows where all the insects and butterflies are (if you clicked it to find insects).

The map SHOULD tell you where they are. However, if none appear, it is because none exist, and the quest you have been given is impossible.

I know this is an old post, but I have never had a problem with the flame fruit quest. As there are two spots in the pyramid where they grow and since they are plants if you wait long enough another batch will grow. Simply sleeping the tomb should work for that. Though there are so many plants that I don't see why you would need to.

I know this topic is really old, but I thought I still throw in what helped me, as they invisible bug issue doesn't seem to be fixed.
For me, it was just like others said, there were markings on the map, but no bugs, not through zooming, waiting, etc. No Mod or anything responsible, because it's a today installed virgin Sims 3 version.
I always play in windowed, so I just opened up my Browser, with the Sims still running (paused of course) and zoomed to the bugs location, to look for solutions. Well found this thread and went back to try things out, but! The Bugs were there in plain view, where they hadn't been visible before.
On next location I couldn't see them either, so once again: -> zoom in on location -> firefox window in foreground -> back to game... et voila, there they were!

My best guess as to why includes the image being newly rendered, when brought back to focus.

But whatever, it works for me that way.
Hope it helps you too!

you can use a insect spawner research it on google