Thanks for gettinng back to me!!
What do they eat in captivity?
I read some stuff that possibly lichen/algae/fungi related foods. I read an old thread on here talking about possibly feeding on algae based fish food. But the threads didn’t elaborate on whether or not that worked.
This is interesting because they were founnd in/ on coming out of dead Oak tree (bark looked like post oak), on pure oak grove, large property too, (Quercus marilandica, Quercus stellata, and Quercus fusiformis) (maybe one other Quercus im forgetting) . No cottonwood or pecan in the general immediate area that im aware of, only huisache and cedar around there, and I know that neighborhood pretty well, been going there all my life and konw my trees.No idea on how to sex them, only that this species is only associated with what, cottonwood and pecan trees in the wild? So their larvae probably eat wood of those tree species, adults will probably only oviposit in the presence of those wood types, but no one has EVER been able to get their adults to oviposit... I'm also gonna make a wild guess and say there's a chance larvae may be cannibalistic, just because I feel like this species would have to make it even harder to rear them that it already is.
When I kept some they would nibble on carrots and dry cat food, but they didn't really take to it (or any other foods).
I've wondered if oak might be another potential host since as you said, there's a lot of it up in those areas.
Well right now I have them temporarily in an open air container on a piece of oak that is from the same tree they were found on, with tons of lichen and fungi on it. Maybe this will meet there food needs to have exactly what they were found on, idk just my hypothesis.
Idk but I’m going to go back next week and scout around and collect more lichen and fungi oak that is kinda pithy in hopes it might be suitable for oviposition, simulating where I found them. I don’t know but the tree I cut is logged out so I can go look to see if there are any larvae in that tree as well, I didn’t think about it till after I left.
So far thats what Im thinking given what is was found on, the tree was very dead and had been for a long time and had quite a few shelf fungi on it, as well as "infested" with lichen.
Best of luck, hope you're able to get larvae from them! Would definitely try and collect more for a proper breeding project if I were you, you may just have a single male after all...
I appreciate the confidence there!
Yeah Im going back on tuesday and thursday to try annd collect more of them and look for larvae as well. Im going to set up some pitfall traps, (if I can find some fungi, maybe ill fungi/lichen bait trap the pitfalls) around the cut up tree, and set up a light trap to see if they are attracted to them as well. Haven't heard of any anyone trying to actively attract them, so maybe I can learn a little bit more on them on attraction aspect as well.Best of luck, hope you're able to get larvae from them! Would definitely try and collect more for a proper breeding project if I were you, you may just have a single male after all...
Larvae will look something like these:
If I find a bunch, he'll get some!
Think you'll have the best luck searching the outside of the tree, and then striping bark from it to look for the Zopherus, as far as I know they are not attracted to lights, nor do I see them straying far from their food source and being attracted by baited pitfall traps, (though I could be wrong). I'll look more into it and see if I can find any particular methods used for collecting them!
Yeah thanks for the collection advice! I figure it couldnt hurt to try out some other collection means, I’m going to get out some of my mycology books and maybe make some slides and maybe try and pull some ID’s for the fungi present on that tree. Used to diagnose tree diseases so maybe I can investigate (fungi wise) whether or not they are limited to polypores or basidiomycetes or if their food source includes other families of fungi as well.Think you'll have the best luck searching the outside of the tree, and then striping bark from it to look for the Zopherus, as far as I know they are not attracted to lights, nor do I see them straying far from their food source and being attracted by baited pitfall traps, (though I could be wrong). I'll look more into it and see if I can find any particular methods used for collecting them!
That would be pretty cool, would love to see if we can get them breeding somehow!
That'd be cool, let us know if you can ID that fungus for sure!Yeah thanks for the collection advice! I figure it couldnt hurt to try out some other collection means, I’m going to get out some of my mycology books and maybe make some slides and maybe try and pull some ID’s for the fungi present on that tree. Used to diagnose tree diseases so maybe I can investigate (fungi wise) whether or not they are limited to polypores or basidiomycetes or if their food source includes other families of fungi as well.
project right up my alley I love fungi and mycology and miss dealing with fungi on a regular basis.
