I still have these guys

Lucanus

Lucanus

Lucanus
Title says it all
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Markelangelo said:
I've never seen anything like it! Those must be pretty small no? It's like a little diabolical dynastes beetle!
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They are widespread across North America but are seldom seen due to their nature of breeding only in Shelf fungus (Genus Ganoderma). So if you run across some shelf fungus, you might be able to see some adults on there
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and yes, they are tiny, measuring around 0.4 in in length. lol

 
your weclome
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last year i found some shelf fungus growing on a wooden fence. i had hoped to find these in the fungus but there was nothing inside. then i looked online to see where these little guys lived, and found out they only lived in eastern NA
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oh well! there are cool little beetles!

 
Nice Bolitotherus beetles. I keep a colony of these too, and have some ~100 beetles already. Very very easy to breed. The most annoying part is to go find mushrooms for them every year in the fall
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wizentrop said:
Nice Bolitotherus beetles. I keep a colony of these too, and have some ~100 beetles already. Very very easy to breed. The most annoying part is to go find mushrooms for them every year in the fall
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I understand your pain. I had to go into deep woods every year to collect Ganodermas and for most of the time i failed to find one so i was in danger of loosing all of my culture. Luckly, i found a place 5 min. away from my house where i can find number of shelf fungus so i won't be in trouble for a while
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The interesting thing is while the adults prefer to munch on whole mushrooms (they spend most of their time on the mushroom's surface), the larvae can be kept in crashed dead mushrooms and they do just fine. So even if I find really old mushrooms from a few years back, I just grind them into fine flaky substrate using a blender (or a coffee grinder) and put it in the freezer. This way I have food for the larvae that can last for years.

 
wizentrop said:
The interesting thing is while the adults prefer to munch on whole mushrooms (they spend most of their time on the mushroom's surface), the larvae can be kept in crashed dead mushrooms and they do just fine. So even if I find really old mushrooms from a few years back, I just grind them into fine flaky substrate using a blender (or a coffee grinder) and put it in the freezer. This way I have food for the larvae that can last for years.
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That's really cool! I knew they could be reared from the old mushrooms but I've never thought of turning the mushrooms into powder to store them. Thanks for sharing
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Well, not powder - just flakes. You can keep this substrate dry in the freezer for years, but when you want to use it you have to wet it a little to "activate" some of the fungi (they will come back to life and produce whitish threads). Depending on how ventilated your container is, this substrate can sometimes catch mold but the larvae are resistant to it.
Unfortunately, the adult beetles still require whole Ganoderma mushrooms for feeding and breeding.

 
My colony has declined a little but their numbers are rising again cause I've placed new Ganoderma in there
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I think I've seen some Ganoderma around, but I haven't ever really checked them for beetles. It'll be something new and different to check out
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