FOUND - male Phanaeus vindex

scottbot84

scottbot84

L3
Bred these succesfully last year, to the point I sold off a few, but lost my remaining male over the winter. 

I have 3 females so could use  1-2 males, otherwise I'll wait until BIC gets them in a few months.

UPDATE - I am no longer looking since BIC is back in stock

 
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I think I picked mine up in May of last year, but I could be wrong.

My current females emerged last fall and have been happy in a refrigerator at 55F with jelly and occasional tortoise dung.

Other than the first group to emerge all my other balls were empty or failed (one with a nice major male in it) despite being produced and stored under similar conditions.

 
It's just an old college refrigerator with one of these in it. You don't even need to make any holes, just feed it between the door hinge and the rubber stripping will compress around it.

I don't know if this is hard on the refrigerator or anything like that, but it's been working for several months now with no issue.

 
I picked up 4 more, if I get 1-2 males I'll be happy. They are really fun to breed although I need to tweak my setup a bit.

I tried keeping the balls semi submerged in coco choir in a moist container and my hatch rate was pretty low.
I will attempt something closer to how they are made for next time. They make a surprising number of balls so you have to remove them unless you use a very large container.

I had really good luck with tortoise poop, dog seems to work ok if it's fresh but it doesn't seem to be preffered.

 
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In nature, Phanaeus vindex excavates brood chambers in compacted clayey / sandy soil made up of very fine particles, largely free of any rocks and gravel.  What kind of substrate did you use for your breeding setup?

 
Mostly topsoil with additional dirt from my yard (which happens to have a high clay content). By the end of the season it was nice black dirt.

I removed any rocks and such but didn't sift it.

I'm thinking I'll add more sand this time around. No yard dirt either so it's easier to reproduce once I get it right.

 
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scottbot84 said:
Mostly topsoil with additional dirt from my yard (which happens to have a high clay content). By the end of the season it was nice black dirt.

I removed any rocks and such but didn't sift it.

I'm thinking I'll add more sand this time around. No yard dirt either so it's easier to reproduce once I get it right.
Click to expand...
Wishing you the best of success with them, and looking forward to hearing about your progress.

 
A great photo of Phanaeus vindex, far sharper quality than what my old camera can produce! - 

6670922005_c2010ed498_b.jpg


I'll always remember the first time I ever saw one of these beetles, nearly 40 years ago.  I was really amazed by the brilliance of its metallic coloration, and still am!

 
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