Beetle Breeding Set-Up (Rainbow Stag & Rhino Beetle)

D

d3ns06

Egg
Hi all,

I'm looking to start breeding beetles as a hobby and I want to get some advise from anyone who has experience with this.

I'm interested in breeding either Rainbow Stag Beetles (Phalacrognathus Muelleri) or Rhino Beetles (Xylotrupes Ulysses) but I'm having a hard time getting a comprehensive guide on how to breed them efficiently.

The most practical breeding set-up I've found online came from "Miss Phantom Fangs", click here to view it.

It basically consists of materials that can be purchased from my local gardening supplies store:

  • A 50 litre plastic container with ventilation holes
  • Organic Compost
  • Garden Soil
  • Sugar Cane Mulch
The main food source of the larvae would be the sugar cane mulch. To add to this set-up I'd probably replace the Garden Soil with Coco-peat, I'd also like to add some sphagnum moss, charcoal and dry dog food pellets (for extra protein).
From the videos that I've seen, larvae in captivity are normally fed rotting wood, especially hard wood that has been affected by "white-rot" which makes the wood very crumbly. I just want to confirm whether the sugar cane mulch will be enough to sustain the larvae. If I can just feed them the sugar cane mulch, it would be a lot more practical as gathering the right type of rotting wood sounds like a very laborious task from my research.

My proposed set up would involve getting a 50 litre clear plastic enclosure, filling it with the above substrate and introducing 1 male beetle and 2-3 female beetles. I would also put sterile flat tree bark pieces over the substrate to help any beetle that flips on it's back. I would continuously mist spray the enclosure to maintain a humidity of around 75%-85% (mist spraying once a day).
I would leave the adult beetles there for 8 weeks, feeding them beetle jelly. After 8 weeks I would carefully rummage around the substrate, looking for larvae. If the larvae is present, I would just leave all the larvae there and let them grow on their own. I would still keep the adults there as I assume they'd just keep mating and laying eggs until the end of their adult life cycle. I would change the substrate once every 6 months to add more food for the larvae (sugar cane mulch and dry dog food pellets). From what I've read, it takes the larvae around 12 months to pupate, can anyone confirm this?

The above set-up would theoretically work for Rhino Beetles but would it work for the Rainbow Stag Beetles? From my research, the Rainbow Stag Beetle seems to lay eggs inside rotting wood stumps, not sure if they will freely lay eggs in substrate?

I'm also not sure how often I should check for eggs/larvae/pupae or whether the adults would have emerged so I'd love to hear any suggestions from people with more experience in the matter as to how to best manage the maintenance keeping in mind the beetle's life cycles.

Any insight on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Dennis

 
Hi, welcome to the forum! As far as i know, most rhinos do lay eggs in that kind of substrate, but not stags.

Stag beetles need rotten oak logs or flake soil(fermented substrate) in order to lay eggs, they will not lay in compost, maybe some lucanus species.

I dont recommend doing this: "I'd probably replace the Garden Soil with Coco-peat, I'd also like to add some sphagnum moss, charcoal and dry dog food pellets (for extra protein)." Since coco-peat has no nutritional value, sphagnum moss should be ok to use, charcoal is not recommended, dog food will just cause mite breakouts.

I recommend collecting rotten oak wood and leaves, chop them up finely with a spade or a processor for your substrate.

xylotroupes might take 1-2 years from egg to adult. P.muelleri takes about 8-14 months.

 
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I second Oak. If you want to be daring ferment the food pellets with the wood.

Also I wouldn't recommend retrieving stag eggs, make sure the substrate isn't wet or moist but a few touches more than damp. This is because the eggs are very sensative.

welcome

 
Thanks for the advise! With what you've said, I've decided to focus on breeding the Rhino Beetles (Xylotrupes Ulysses).

I'm in Sydney, Australia and I've been doing a bit of research on the types of trees that are around my area and from what I can find, we don't really have a huge "oak tree population" around here. What we have are a lot of eucalyptus trees.

Are the larvae very finicky about the type of wood they eat? I can find eucalyptus fairly easy around where I am but oak is a different story.

The reason I mentioned using sugar cane mulch initially was that it would be easy for me to get my hands on it, but as you know I'm not sure if it will provide the larvae with enough food. Can you weigh in on this as being the main food source for the larvae?

The mulch looks like this and it's made of dried sugarcane leaves and stems.

With regards to the retrieval of the eggs, I'm not planning on removing the eggs from the breeding container. I might remove some of the larvae and separate them in their own individual containers, but for the most part I would leave the eggs/larvae/pupae in the large breeding enclosure. I would only go through the breeding enclosure to check for the progress of the eggs/larvae/pupae (I'm thinking a monthly check through the substrate) and to replace the substrate (every 6-8 months).

 
I have bred a few xylotrupes and have always used leaf humus.....oak ro beech and nothing else. I would typically house 10 in a 12 litre tub.

 
d3ns06,

I'd suggest picking up a few books from here http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/elytraandantenna/

That'll get ya started.
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