Hello from South Florida.

[likebugs]

Hello all.

I have recently become interested in trying to find some of my local species of beetles when a friend brought me a dead Strategus antaeus that he found in the back of his truck. I have seen many beautiful and smaller species while growing up down here, but I never knew that we had such impressive ones to be found in this area. I figure if there is a dead one, then I may be able to find some live ones to raise.

Most of the arthropods that I keep are local, and I really enjoy field collecting specimens if it is possible.

My daughter who will be 6 on the 12th of this month seems to be obsessed with the dead beetle that we have, and keeps taking it out of the box to inspect it. I fear that it will soon fall apart.

She has been drawing pictures of beetles for a couple of years now(I have so many beetle pictures that I am running out of room for them). I think that she might be ready to help raise some grubs, if we can find any, along with the proper diet that they may need to thrive.

We have kept a few of the smaller species that we found in the yard until they have become noisy stridulating adults, they are fun to observe even if they are small.

Any advice on collecting and raising my local species will be welcomed.

 

[カブトムシ]

Welcome! Beetles are fun and easy to care for, as long as everything is set up correctly. Beetles are good for children, because they are safe to handle and fun to watch, plus they are hard to hurt. Strategus antaeus is pretty easy to find, but I believe they (like many other rhino beetles) die in the winter. I Think Dynastes Tityus lives in florida, which is one of the biggest U.S native species, along with it's cousin Dynastes Granti. For collecting you can set up a blacklight aimed at a hanging sheet, or you can check bright lights near forested areas. I caught Dynastes Granti in Arizona at Gas Stations. A good book to read about U.S. natives is The complete Guide to Rearing the Eastern Hercules Beetle By Orin McMonigle. This book talks about Dynastes Tityus (most of the book is about this beetle), Dynastes Granti, U.S. Megasoma species, Strategus aloeus and anteus, plus others. Hopefully beetles can one day become as popular as pets in the U.S. as they are in japan right now. You can even buy beetles in vending machines in japan. Happy beetle Keeping!

 

[likebugs]

Thanks for the welcome,カブトムシ .

I have read about how easy it is to obtain insect pets in Japan. I am envious.

I wish I could just go get a beetle from a machine.

Although, it is fun to collect insects in the wild.

Most people around here think it is strange to collect arthropods, but that won't stop me.

I found a couple grubs today, but they look different from eachother. One of them is larger than the other but its head is smaller than the larger grub's head. I wonder what they will become, and have decided to try raising them, using the same material that I found them in. That seems to work well with other arthropods that I have collected.

 

[カブトムシ]

If you want ID on the grubs you could check online, but Most grubs are hard to ID. However, you could get it down to knowing that the grubs are fruit, rhino, stag beetles etc, just not exact species. About how big are they? Size can tell a lot when it comes to grubs

 

[likebugs]

If you want ID on the grubs you could check online, but Most grubs are hard to ID. However, you could get it down to knowing that the grubs are fruit, rhino, stag beetles etc, just not exact species. About how big are they? Size can tell a lot when it comes to grubs

I think that those grubs are Tomarus subtropicus because of the size and the fact that we get many of them around here. I wasn't too sure, at first because I had not yet researched enough to know that grubs can be so large when compared to adults. Now that I know that, I really want to collect some larger species in their larval stages.

I also found some different grubs, pupae, and beetles in my neighbor's compost. There are a couple adults that look like Protaetia fusca, They are pretty things.

 

[カブトムシ]

Yeah, the big megasoma Grubs are huge!