Body fluid

Lucanus

Lucanus

Lucanus
I was going to wait little longer to post about this but I just couldn't wait.

After checking my 1 Dynastes tityus larva, 2 Dynastes grantii X tityus hybrids, and 1 Dynastes grantii larva for three months (it took me sooooo long!), I was able to observe one of the hybrid larva using its body fluid to build the pupal cell
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Here is my Youtube channel with videos of larva building pupal cell.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlanJeon?feature=mhee

In the beginning (

- you can see the fluid on the wall of the container and you can also see that part of the wall of pupal cell is wet) released clear fluid out of its anus. This made the surrounding substrates wet and easy to cluster. After that, larva began to use this wet substrates to finish building the pupal cell.
But unlike what I expacted, larva hasn't used its feces much than I expacted (Hardly none). The specimen hasn't become prepupa yet so I am still observing to see what the larva will do with that feces. In Trypoxylus dichotomus, larva released liquid like feces on the walls of pupal cell which helped smoothing out the wall of the pupal cell (but they didn't seem to use the fluid like the hybrids so I guess T. dichotomus pupal cell is weaker than D. tityus because they don't use fluids to build the pupal cell.

I can go into further but I have SAT coming in like two weeks so I'll wait till I take SAT.

 
Lucanus said:
...larva began to release body fluids after the basic outline of pupal cell was formed -about 18 hours after I first observed the larva building pupal cell- .
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I checked your video but I don't see the fluid release in either of your videos. Do you have a few freeze frame photos that show it?

Usually the fluid release isn't for a week or two after the pupal cell has been fully formed (mid prepupa) but this will vary if the pupal cell formation has been artificially delayed. I don't understand your comments about A. dichotoma since you both said they do and don't use fluids in the same sentence: "Trypoxylus dichotomus, larva released liquid like feces on the walls of pupal cell which helped smoothing out the wall of the pupal cell (but they didn't seem to use the fluid like the hybrids so I guess T. dichotomus pupal cell is weaker than D. tityus because they don't use fluids to build the pupal cell."

 
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Liquid like feces and straight up liquid are different. He told me the liquid was clear for D tityus/granti. It's different.

At least this is what I think...

Also, it looks pretty moist in there. Look closely. It is like mud on the edges of the pupal cell.

 
Ryan Minard said:
Liquid like feces and straight up liquid are different. He told me the liquid was clear for D tityus/granti. It's different.

At least this is what I think...

Also, it looks pretty moist in there. Look closely. It is like mud on the edges of the pupal cell.
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Moist substrate will release water when compacted (try squeezing damp substrate in your hand).

 
Orin said:
I checked your video but I don't see the fluid release in either of your videos. Do you have a few freeze frame photos that show it?

Usually the fluid release isn't for a week or two after the pupal cell has been fully formed (mid prepupa) but this will vary if the pupal cell formation has been artificially delayed. I don't understand your comments about A. dichotoma since you both said they do and don't use fluids in the same sentence: "Trypoxylus dichotomus, larva released liquid like feces on the walls of pupal cell which helped smoothing out the wall of the pupal cell (but they didn't seem to use the fluid like the hybrids so I guess T. dichotomus pupal cell is weaker than D. tityus because they don't use fluids to build the pupal cell."
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First of all, I saw the larva directly releasing the body fluid into the substrate to make the substrate damp. I thought I got the video of it but it looks like the video was taken right after the larva released the fluid on the wall. But you can still see the wall getting really damp than before. Similar phenomenon is shown in Eophileurus chinensis so I highly doubt that the larva was releasing the body fluid for becoming prepupa.

Trypoxylus dichotomus, larva released liquid like feces on the walls of pupal cell which helped smoothing out the wall of the pupal cell (but they didn't seem to use the fluid like the hybrids so I guess T. dichotomus pupal cell is weaker than D. tityus because they don't use fluids to build the pupal cell."
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I was going to explain about this later but since this is causing confusion, I'll explain it now.

What I have observed so far is that "Dynastes hybrid" released clear substances that dampened the substrate surrounding it. But in T. dichotomus, I was unable to observe this part. Instead, they released blackish substance and circled around the pupal cell that smoothed out the wall more than how it was. So they didn't use the body fluid to build the wall of pupal cell but used it only to smoothen it out. This probably is why Trypoxylus dichotomus's pupal cells aren't sterdy as D. tityus.

 
Orin said:
Moist substrate will release water when compacted (try squeezing damp substrate in your hand).
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True but it is barely compacted when pupal cells are made. My Lucanus substrate didn't gain any moisture when constructed.

As for Trypoxylus/Allomyrina... this genus is a confusion. People never really anounced the official name... Instead, people went seperate ways. I saw people revert to Trypoxylus for good reasons, while some other things kept allomyrina. It's odd...

Trypoxylus is sort of an older term but apparently the "Allomyrina dichotoma" is different then other Allomyrina.

 
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Ryan Minard said:
True but it is barely compacted when pupal cells are made. My Lucanus substrate didn't gain any moisture when constructed.
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I'd be interested in seeing your Lucanus cell photos. Does our member Lucanus agree with you that larvae barely compact substrate? If you feel that larvae barely compact substrate there's no way for me to argue with that.

 
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Orin said:
I'd be interested in seeing your Lucanus cell photos. Does our member Lucanus agree with you that larvae barely compact substrate? If you feel that larvae barely compact substrate there's no way for me to argue with that.
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I let mine to pupate in clay so I can't confirm this. However, I find Lucanus elaphus larvae building pupal cell in similar manner to Trypoxylus dichotomus so they probably build cells that aren't as sterdy as Dynastes tityus.

 
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