Megalodacne heros - Pleasing Fungus Beetle

Greatwun

Chalcosoma
Cool little beetles found in the Holopaw, FL area. I have never found this species before. All were found inside of rotting oak stumps.

sq3f.jpg


5htp.jpg


 
Last edited by a moderator:
I only got two for my dried collection but LarvaHunter is going to try and breed them. Apparently they can go from larva to pupa in as little as two weeks.

 
Cool! I hope he is successfull. Yeah sap beetles also grow that fast, they would be easy to culture, if they weren't so good at escaping,lol.

 
I would like to keep some but I don't have enough fungi around me to provide for them. Guess I'll just stick to fruit eating beetles for now lol.

 
I found out they eat reishi mushrooms, besides the other hardwood bracket fungi,etc... They don't like portabellas.

Today when gathering some shelf mushroom, I found several of a different species fungus beetle that has similar colors but 1/3 the size, I still haven't been able to identify them.

 
They are eating the portabella mushroom caps, I guess they found it today, they hang out under the mushroom cap, it moves all around the place. They probably don't like light.

 
Beautiful species. And very buprestid-like in appearance.
I do not find this group of beetles to be difficult to breed (provided you have to proper food for them). When I kept fungus pleasing beetles I collected bracket mushrooms for food but found out that they will also take oyster mushrooms.

 
Cool! Maybe you guys can all start breeding them, collect more species, and then start a website " fungus beetles R us " and sell them, lol. And then they will become as commonly kept as rhino beetles, stag beetles, etc. Ahhhhh... A man can dream right?
default_biggrin.png


But really, cool beetles!

 
Cool! Maybe you guys can all start breeding them, collect more species, and then start a website " fungus beetles R us " and sell them, lol. And then they will become as commonly kept as rhino beetles, stag beetles, etc. Ahhhhh... A man can dream right?
default_biggrin.png


But really, cool beetles!
That would be nice. To have a big beetle store like Kingdom of Beetle Taiwan here in the US. Yes we can all dream, lol.

 
Welp, collected a group of my own and I'm curious to what the care is like? Mainly humidity since I can easily find bracket fungus for them.

 
Welp, collected a group of my own and I'm curious to what the care is like? Mainly humidity since I can easily find bracket fungus for them.
Awesome, I've never kept these but I assume they would like a high humidity level, and probably would not need much ventilation.

 
Back
Top