Parasites or Fungus?

Inle

Inle

Pupa
I'm not sure what these are? I just caught these Eleodes goryi this morning and two of them have little brown things attached to them. It almost looks like someone super glued a sesame seed to the beetles. Any ideas?







 
Hmm... it doesn't quite look like a mite. Usually if anything is on them it would be mites.

Can you pull it off with a pair of tweezers? Or maby gently get it off?

Some insects and other living things sometimes hitch a ride on large beetles. It could be something organic, like a fungi or invertebrate (parasitic or not). Or could be something as simply as someone spilled something on the beetle.

It reminds me of the common pest, mealy bugs, but why would one be on a beetle?

I would just try to get it off the beetle and perhaps look underneath all the beetles also.

 
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What ever it was it wasn't a mite. It picked off pretty easily with a tweezer and didn't leave any harm behind on the beetles. It had no legs or anything when I picked it off. I just wondered if anyone knew what it was!

I saw this picture on Bugguide. This is what the goryi I found also had. Except this guy has an actual camera and took a good picture!

http://bugguide.net/node/view/467386/bgimage




 
Was it sticky or anything?

Maybe keep the ones that had those spots separate from the others and pick all of the spots off of them, front and back. Then see if they come back within a few days.

If you do see anymore on the rest of the beetles, put the little spot things in a small separate container and see if they start moving or anything after they sit a while. They may be mites, but just playing dead.

 
I squeezed and prodded the spots and cut one in half with the tweezers. I really don't think they are mites. I wonder if they might be some form of egg? I have the two spotty ones (now spot free) separated from the rest of the beetle group just in case.

 
Possible, they could be eggs of something.

Did you keep any alive and unharmed? If so then watch it for a while, maybe it will hatch or start doing something then we will know what we are dealing with.

 
parasite wasp egg?
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Possible, I cannot find any photos on google though.

If they are eggs then there shouldn't be an issue of getting rid of them other than just picking them off. Assuming none hatched that is.

 
I know the one that I cut in half had something inside of it. I'm not sure of the second one I washed it down the sink. I read that the tachinid fly hatches from the egg within 2 days and a few days later the beetle will go paralyzed as the larva eats it from the inside.
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Hopefully I got the eggs off before that happens!

 
It depends on the species of fly. I read online that some may take their time to get to the instar were they pupate or exit the beetle.

If any stop moving quick separate them, thats pretty much all that can be done.

 
Great... I guess I just watch them and see what happens! Hopefully the little beetles end up fine and I saved them from being eaten alive from the inside.

 
It is defiantly not a mite. It has no legs and no other body parts. I wish I had a better camera to take closer up pictures of these things. They appear to be stuck to the beetle on the wider end of the tear drop shape. They come off fairly easily with tweezers but will not brush off with a paint brush or my figure. When flipped over it is transparent and smooth with a dark brown or black center. When squeezed with the tweezers I can "pop" it like a pimple and black stuff will eject from one end. I watched some of the yellow things for a while after removing them from beetles and they do not move or crawl away. So far I have collected around 15 beetles that had yellow spots on them.

I came to the conclusion of tachinid fly egg from this, which also has a way better picture of the yellow things than I could take. Scroll about half way: http://www.austinbug.com/survey/2010/survey10-14-2010.html

 
At first I thought mite, but I am thinking wasp eggs also now after seeing more pictures online.

Sometimes mites won't move a lot, but you would think that after a while they would move a little bit.

I hope none hatched! Especially the ones both of us have.

 
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I mean every ones, yours and mine.

They all seem pretty happy and lively for both of us, so I don't think they have the parasites.

 
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