T. dichotomus in pupal cell

[scavenger]

Male T. dichotomus in pupal cell... and an early female.

 

[8 leg wonder]

Cool pics Damon, When are you going to let me get my hands on some of those?

 

[scavenger]

Cool pics Damon, When are you going to let me get my hands on some of those?

NEVER!!!

Get some beetles yourself and we can trade... i have better stuff than these. my C atlas larvae are doing great and i should have close to 100 larvae next generation... So get something cool to trade or they will all go to Japan again!
Ha!

 

[8 leg wonder]

NEVER!!!

Get some beetles yourself and we can trade... i have better stuff than these. my C atlas larvae are doing great and i should have close to 100 larvae next generation... So get something cool to trade or they will all go to Japan again!
Ha!

I'd definitly rather have the C.atlas, don't send them to japan you bastard ;P

 

[Empi]

I'll trade you a baby emperor scorpion for C.atlas!

 

[Dark Raptor]

Great beetle, but I think opening pupation chamber isn't the best idea (you are risking that beetle will be deformed).

 

[scavenger]

Great beetle, but I think opening pupation chamber isn't the best idea (you are risking that beetle will be deformed).

Yes that can happen... I open and remove some of them from cells now and again. I have never had a problem but I know how to build artificial pupal chambers and I disturb those I leave in the cells as little as possible. (The one in the picture has a removable wooden "lid" that I put back on after the picture is taken.) I should post some pictures of my C atlas pupae in artificial cells...

 

[8 leg wonder]

Yes that can happen... I open and remove some of them from cells now and again. I have never had a problem but I know how to build artificial pupal chambers and I disturb those I leave in the cells as little as possible. (The one in the picture has a removable wooden "lid" that I put back on after the picture is taken.) I should post some pictures of my C atlas pupae in artificial cells...

Please do Damon, I'd love to see them

 

[Dark Raptor]

Please do Damon, I'd love to see them

Me too. I've lost few scarabaeid beetles after dammaging their pupal cells. It is difficult to rebuild them in a proper way.

 

[scavenger]

Me too. I've lost few scarabaeid beetles after dammaging their pupal cells. It is difficult to rebuild them in a proper way.

I would never open a pupal cell of any Centoniinae or any scarab that builds a complete pupal cell... Big Dynastinae is no problem as they build an incomplete cell... I will open a cell, creat a new one and post the pics in a new thread.

Sorry i am having some trouble finding my pictures from last year... I have some other pics somemay find useful...
Breedings, feeding, boxes, larvae ect.

First is T. dichotomus...

 

[scavenger]

And C. atlas.
The larvae are very aggressive!

In the second to last picture you can see pupal cells I have opened to view the development. the imagos are resting after their transformation.... these are NOT artificial cells though. I wish could find some better pics... Sorry.

In the last pic is some size variations on a log.

 

[Dark Raptor]

They are great!

The biggest larvae I had were Osmoderma eremita and Protaetia aeruginosa (5 - 7 cm) but these are... huge?
I hope in next two years to start keeping larger beetles than things I'm keeping now.

 

[Randolph XX()]

Hey Damon
ur atlas looks "dwarf" up somehow, or u don't really mind they get smaller?

Some ppl(yes, Jordan) don't really care bugs' size as long as they don't know how rare is it in nature and how hard is it to raise a bigger(well, at least same size as regular WC one) one in captivity

i've heard there is a new fungi product called A2 has done really good jobs for raising bigger Chalcosoma, cuz they have better fermentation rate of the substrate
here is a photo of Chalcosoma caucacus pupa raised with A2
not a monster one, but a pretty good size weighs 84 gram and 12+cmlong, so the adult might be 10cm
http://www.insect-mall.idv.tw/PHOTO/INDEX.JPG
maybe u should try to order from Japan
btw, what subspcies are ur T. dichotomus?

 

[Wade]

Here's a picture of a D. tityus pupae after I accidentally destroyed the cell. After taking the pictures, I made a new cell by packing frass into a plastic container and then pressing my thumb in to make an indenion. Basically, it was like a half-cell. I layed the pupae in it (cleaned the dirt off first) and I used a smaller plastic container to lay over the half cell to prevent dirt or debris from falling in. I then covered this with a damp paper towel. I put the lid on the larger container with a single hole for ventilation. The beetle emerged without a problem!

Wade

 

[EDED]

wow

i grew up searching for T. dichotomus (i didnt even know the latin name till now) when i was younger,,,,had no luck, since i lived in the city of Seoul, South Korea,,,maybe pollution?

i found lots of stag beetles (many different species) though


ahhhh memories, good to see that captive breeding has been going for awhile, at least they wont go extinct. keep it up guys :clap:

hopefully one day i will get to breed them too.

 

[scavenger]

Hey Damon
ur atlas looks "dwarf" up somehow, or u don't really mind they get smaller?

Some ppl(yes, Jordan) don't really care bugs' size as long as they don't know how rare is it in nature and how hard is it to raise a bigger(well, at least same size as regular WC one) one in captivity

i've heard there is a new fungi product called A2 has done really good jobs for raising bigger Chalcosoma, cuz they have better fermentation rate of the substrate
here is a photo of Chalcosoma caucacus pupa raised with A2
not a monster one, but a pretty good size weighs 84 gram and 12+cmlong, so the adult might be 10cm
http://www.insect-mall.idv.tw/PHOTO/INDEX.JPG
maybe u should try to order from Japan
btw, what subspcies are ur T. dichotomus?

The biggest one in the picture was 89 mm (9cm) Not a monster by any stretch but still bigger than a junebug. I have heard it is normal to find varying sizes within a wild population and majority will be of a medial size. I have to say I'm not exactly sure what you mean about size if people don't know how rare it is... Are you saying Chalcosoma atlas is rare? Or are you saying that It's rare to find big ones? As for this product A2 I'll have to look into it. Where do you find it?

 

[Randolph XX()]

The biggest one in the picture was 89 mm (9cm) Not a monster by any stretch but still bigger than a junebug. I have heard it is normal to find varying sizes within a wild population and majority will be of a medial size. I have to say I'm not exactly sure what you mean about size if people don't know how rare it is... Are you saying Chalcosoma atlas is rare? Or are you saying that It's rare to find big ones? As for this product A2 I'll have to look into it. Where do you find it?

what i mean is it's hard to find bigger individuals in the wild, and instead of collecting big beetles in the wild, raise them in captivity is better for the hobby. For some beetles, it's easier to get bigger one in captivity than WC.

However, most popular beetle species are hard to raise to bigger size, such as Dynastes sps and Dorcus sps, and especially Chalcosoma

I am not familiar with Japanese dealer, but from the Taiwanese bug sites, they are less than $10 cdn in 5.5 liter package, and i assume it's even chaeper from it's orginal country.

but u can try Lumber Jack http://lumber-j.com/goods/index.html
i've checked, and they don't have the same product i mentioned, but u can always try different fungi supplements, and might have better effects for the larvaes(i don't really know about the details, there are so much to learn about that, like each genus has their costumize products which fit their needs)
the only thing i know is Stag beetles depend on wood and fugi more than Rhinos

 

[Dark Raptor]

If you give more proteins to Scarab's food they will grow much larger than specimens captured in the wild. I've tested this on few species and it really works. I've never tried this with stag beetles, so I can't help with that family.

 

[Randolph XX()]

If you give more proteins to Scarab's food they will grow much larger than specimens captured in the wild. I've tested this on few species and it really works. I've never tried this with stag beetles, so I can't help with that family.

Do u mean Goliathus sps?
It's amazing that ppl feed the larvae dog food, and mealworms for adults!

 

[Dark Raptor]

Do u mean Goliathus sps?
It's amazing that ppl feed the larvae dog food, and mealworms for adults!

No. Only small and medium sized Cetonidae species.

But chceck this page:
http://www.naturalworlds.org/goliathus/manual/Goliathus_breeding_3.htm