Coincidentally, there was some discussion about
Alaus /
Chalcolepidius at exactly this same time last year! -
http://beetleforum.net/topic/3989-alaus-lusciosus/
I've never seen a
Chalcolepidius larva in person (and don't know anyone who has), but they look like this -
https://www.zin.ru/Animalia/Coleoptera/eng/tagch222.htm
Agreed - these would be great beetles to get into captive culture, if possible. Has anyone succeeded in breeding any species of
Alaus? By breeding, I mean having eggs laid in captivity and and then rearing the larvae to adults?
Yeah, I'd love it if someone could collect some
Chalcolepidius females and give it a shot, or send some to someone who'll give it a shot...
Yes, at least one species of
Alaus has been cultured over multiple generations, I believe
A.lusciosus:
They're not that difficult, one merely needs to separate larvae as soon as they're found, offer young larvae crushed prey, and as they get bigger just offer live prey, (unfortunately
Alaus don't seem to be able to switch to dog food like
Pyrophorus). The main difficulty with
Alaus is many species won't pupate unless given a piece of wood to bore into and create a pupal cell in, it appears that
A.lusciosus doesn't have that requirement though, and as such may be the easiest of the
Alaus to breed IMO.
So, being closely related to
Alaus and
Pyrophorus, two genera that have been bred in captivity successfully, I feel as though it'd be easy to extrapolate a suitable husbandry methodology for the
Chalcolepidius spp. from the husbandry needs of those two genera...
