Sexing Certain Scarab Beetles

[BeetleBuzz]

I've scoured across the internet looking "for how to sex scarab beetles" or "how to sex Green June bugs or Sugarcane Beetles(The 2 species I own.)" but to no avail. I know it's easy to sex rinos, stags, types of dung beetles because of mandibles/horns, but male and female June Bugs are identical. Applies to sugarcane beetles as well! Any way I can tell what gender they are? I can show pictures, but It'll have to be tomorrow. Everyone else is asleep right now. Can't make noise. Confined to my own bedroom.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Ranitomeya]

Unfortunately, there are some scarab beetles that can only be sexed when they're mating.

 

[Tenevanica]

A genital dissection will also reveal the sex, but I don't think that's something you're interested in doing.

 

[BeetleBuzz]

Thanks for your replies! I just think that my june bug is male because he was excreating a white fluid(semen?), just as I took pictures!

Pictures of the June Bug:


Sorry for blurriness. He hates me and wouldn't hold still for a second. The second image shows some of the white fluid on his bottom.

Sugar Boogar, my adorable pest. She's/he's a good bug I have had her/him for over a week now.
Both are wild caught and are fed bananas, strawberries, and jello. Substrate is aspen bedding.

 

[Lucanus95]

Many Cetoniinae can be sexed by checking the ventral side of the abdomen where males have a line of indentation along the middle. Haven't checked this on Cotinis so I can't say for sure that this method works for this genus, but it's worth a shot.

Here's a helpful link
http://exotic.webnode.cz/breeding/how-to-sex/


Second species you have is Dyscinetus morator, which can be sexed by checking the tarsi of the front legs. Males have enlarged tarsi.

male :
http://bugguide.net/node/view/269766/bgimage

female :
http://bugguide.net/node/view/1032510/bgimage

Yours appears to be a male by the way

 

[BeetleBuzz]

Thank you for your post and guides! So Sugar Boogar is a "rice beetle?" Looks like he'll need a name change. I'll recheck "Buzzer" for that indention tomorrow. He's chowing down on jello right now and will be burrowing for the night soon. He had a rough day with picture taking. If you're wondering why I'm asking for gendering on these backyard bugs, I'm trying to see if I could hybridize scarab beetles. I know it sounds silly but I'm one to just think "what if?" I once was able to have a male Japanese beetle mate with a june bug, full penetration, so they probably produce similar pheromones. They're both scarabs too. But I was a kid back then and found it more humorous than interesting. No egg laying. Didn't have a substrate for it anyways. Pretty sure the two died in their container with holes poked in the top or I let them go. lol
I know it's better to target the genus and not just the family, but I have heard of hybrid moths with butterflies. Not sure how big hybridization practice on insects are but I guess it's worth a shot if it's never been done.

 

[BobBarley]

Thank you for your post and guides! So Sugar Boogar is a "rice beetle?" Looks like he'll need a name change. I'll recheck "Buzzer" for that indention tomorrow. He's chowing down on jello right now and will be burrowing for the night soon. He had a rough day with picture taking. If you're wondering why I'm asking for gendering on these backyard bugs, I'm trying to see if I could hybridize scarab beetles. I know it sounds silly but I'm one to just think "what if?" I once was able to have a male Japanese beetle mate with a june bug, full penetration, so they probably produce similar pheromones. But I was a kid back then and found it more humorous than interesting. No egg laying. Didn't have a substrate for it anyways. Pretty sure the two died in their container with holes poked in the top or I let them go. lol

It wouldn't work because they are in different genera and aren't very "related". They are in completely different subfamilies. Hybridizing is really frowned upon in the hobby anyway.

 

[BeetleBuzz]

Thank you for your reply, but why is hybridizing frowned upon?

 

[BobBarley]

Thank you for your reply, but why is hybridizing frowned upon?

Take the hissing roaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa, for example. It has been crossed with so many different Gromphadorhina species so much, that there are probably no pure lines. We don't want that to happen with anymore species. Some people may hybridize a species and not label it as a hybrid. This ruins the bloodlines.

 

[Ranitomeya]

The white substance is just how beetles and many other insects excrete nitrogenous waste. Insects with more solid wastes produce it as a dry powdery substance in their fecal matter, but beetles that feed on fluids will produce it as a whitish liquid that may be very watery or somewhat thick and gelatinous--it depends on the amount of fluid present in their waste.

 

[BeetleBuzz]

I see what you mean. But if I was ever to get any hybrids out of any beetles, I wouldn't sell them or try to make some breeding profit out of them. I would just raise them. When they die I'll dry them out and cast their bodies in clear resin and sell those. I've made them using cicada skins. They make interesting gifts for bug lovers and insect collectors.

 

[BobBarley]

Right, if you're going to hybridize just do it responsibly and know that it's very frowned upon. I wouldn't do it, but if no hybrids get into the hobby, it should be fine. Also know that the two species you have can't hybridize. They might mate, but there would be no offspring.

 

[BeetleBuzz]

Understood. I have no interest on selling live animals. I do not support hybridizing in the hobby either. What I do is personal and not for a profit but study. I was wondering, how well would hybridizing the Phyllophaga group work? Most of them resemble each other so well I probably wouldn't get anything impressive, maybe a weird marking here or there. Here in VA we get a lot of masked chafers and fur-collareds and other brown june bugs. Too bad striped june beetles aren't native to my area. Beautiful striped june beetle x adorable masked chafer would be an interesting mix.

 

[BobBarley]

Understood. I have no interest on selling live animals. I do not support hybridizing in the hobby either. What I do is personal and not for a profit but study. I was wondering, how well would hybridizing the Phyllophaga group work? Most of them resemble each other so well I probably wouldn't get anything impressive, maybe a weird marking here or there. Here in VA we get a lot of masked chafers and fur-collareds and other brown june bugs. Too bad striped june beetles aren't native to my area. Beautiful striped june beetle x adorable masked chafer would be an interesting mix.

No idea how it would go, though I'd imagine you could get them to mate at the least. Not many people hybridize so there is very little information.

 

[Toxoderidae]

Also, the first beetle in the picture is not a June bug. June bugs are all in the genus Phyllophaga, and all look about the same (see my thumbnail)

In regards to hybridization, not only does it foul bloodlines, but it can be lethal to the specimens or in extreme cases, the species. A good example would be what's known as super (insert morph) ballpython. Out of 30 eggs, 3 might hatch, and 1 might still be able to mate. The survivor mates, does the same, and creates more, but now it's taken over the Het Banana morph. Here's where it gets worse.

Now, you've destroyed one line already, and fouled another. And, since your gene pool is so tight with how few offspring are viable, eventually your new morph will die, and kill both variants of the ball python.

This is an incredibly extreme example, but all the more shows what would happen.

 

[Jacob Ma]

@Toxoderidae Just wanted to point something out:
http://entoweb.okstate.edu/ddd/insects/greenjunebeetle.htm
http://bugguide.net/node/view/520
May beetles are all in Phyllophaga, so I believe you are mistaken.

 

[Toxoderidae]

@Toxoderidae Just wanted to point something out:
http://entoweb.okstate.edu/ddd/insects/greenjunebeetle.htm
http://bugguide.net/node/view/520
May beetles are all in Phyllophaga, so I believe you are mistaken.

Those say Cotinis for genus?

 

[Jacob Ma]

Also, the first beetle in the picture is not a June bug. June bugs are all in the genus Phyllophaga, and all look about the same (see my thumbnail)

Cotinis are June bugs, Phyllophaga on the other hand are May bugs. I know they aren't really "bugs" but rather beetles, but it's just a common name.

 

[Toxoderidae]

Cotinis are June bugs, Phyllophaga on the other hand are May bugs. I know they aren't really "bugs" but rather beetles, but it's just a common name.

Everything I'm finding aside from those two links says Phyllophaga are June Bugs?
http://texasinsects.tamu.edu/bimg139.html
https://www.britannica.com/animal/June-beetle

Perhaps this is a regional thing, But everything I'm finding EXCEPT for articles from certain southern areas in the US, and even there, most direct the term "June Bug" to Phyllophaga.

 

[Jacob Ma]

Bottom line, the green beetles ARE June bugs and are not called May bugs, while the brown beetles may be referred to June bugs or May bugs interchangeably. Certain areas may refer to them as different things, but just search up the common name for the Cotinis genus and most likely it will be green june bug/beetle.