any info on Necrophila americana( aka American Carrion Beetle)?

[codykrr]

ok well i posted in another thread earlier, but im curious as to the husbandry of these beetles. s far ive gathered the eat fly larva(maggots) dried flesh/meat(rotted) and just your basic carrion. the beetles (adults) overwinter to lay eggs in the spring which in turn also eat carrion and maggots and other carrion beetles. so my question is how do or would someone keep them. i captured one so far. and put potting soil as a substrate. and i thawed out a frozen mouse to rot. im keeping this one in my garage due to the nasty smell. so des that sound alright so far? tomorrow i plan on catching more, so if anyone is interested in some im open for all trades and or sales.

 

[Matt K]

I had a small colony of them going. You dont need to give them rotting mouse, just thaw to room temp and pop it in there- they know its dead. I actually gave mine mostly beef heart pieces from the fridge (heart from the butcher at the grocery store). They will eat a variety of flesh products. Keep at room temp or slightly warmer...they can take higher temps but there is no point to it other than make the colony smell stronger. There is no way around the bad smell...get used to it if you want to keep these beetles.... substrate of cotton is really best....cleaner and the larvae burrow through it well eating up every bit of flesh and fluid...

 

[codykrr]

awsome...thanks matt. and the mouse isnt rotting yet. but id imagine it will soon enough, do you have any pics of your setup?

 

[codykrr]

ok well i caught about 4 more...i hink i have 5 now or 6. also theve been eating on a mouse i put in there...just an update.

 

[Matt K]

No pics. I kept the colony for nearly a year but could not stand the constant bad smell so I got rid of it. Figured that I live in a semi-rural area where roadkill tends to sit a while before getting cleaned up and it should not be too hard to find them again. Tried many remedies for the smell and could not find anything that worked....

 

[ArachnoBasement]

Hi Cody. I've kept a colony of these guys that grew out of control. My advice is to keep them dry. I used to keep them in a soil based setup with around 50% humidity, but they didnt do much. They didn't reproduce all that well and it made the food stink very quickly.
Then from someone's advice, I put them on CareFresh bedding. That recycled paper pulp crap. I feed them try dog food alot, but if you want them to breed, you need fresh meat. I would always use frozen/thawed feeder mice. Eventually, the colony was able to strip down dead anoles, bearded dragons, frogs, etc in no time. Left really cool looking skeletons and skulls. Hope that helps

 

[codykrr]

yeah i think im goingto use them acually!. i think a few nicelooking skeletal remain would be nice. you know let them strip them down, then ill bleach them untill clean!.

 

[Vulgaris]

They are pretty cool insects. I threw a pinkie mouse out the other day because it was somehow growing mold and I did not want to feed it to my snake

so I just threw the mouse outside and a day later it had a few of these beetles on it. They must have been laying eggs, because all of them had their ovipositors out

They were actively chasing away the flies. pretty cool

 

[bhoeschcod]

You should keep them vulgaris they are fun i need to get more though.

 

[ArachnoBasement]

Using a pitfall trap is the best way to get them, and quickest. I usually bury a 32oz container in the ground so that the top opening is flush with the ground. In a smaller cup in the middle of the big cup, I throw in 2 or 3 pinkies (or any meat really). Then you cover the top with a flat board or something, proped up on rocks. This is just to keep the rain out (if it rains). Usually in a day or two I'll check in and have all kinds of bugs, including these carrion bettles and some burying beetles.

On a side note, I've also had them fall into some of my traps baited with bananas. Strange......

 

[codykrr]

yes.. they are truely fascinating....i seen them chasing the flies away as well. cool stuff. currently i have an old dead corn snake(died of natural causes) and im letting them do here thing. once it is striped i plan on bleaching the bones, and reconstructing them. then casting them in cear resin.

 

[bhoeschcod]

How many beetles if it is 4-6 it is going to take a long time to stripe a snake to bones don't expect it to happen over night.

 

[codykrr]

no i should have been more clear. ive caught now about 30 of them. and been feeding them full grown mice.(whic are gone in 2days or so) also have noticed them breeding some as i can activly see larva too! and the snake in question is just a baby maybe a mear 13 to 14 inches long(it was a baby corn snake that died of an unknown cause).

 

[bhoeschcod]

Oh that changes everything it should take 3-5 days give or take.

 

[Scythemantis]

I have a hard time finding these here in Florida but I was certain they existed around here. If anyone has a colony I'd gladly buy a few adults and larva