U.S Darkling Beetle Breeders

If I had to guess, I suspect they're all hybrids. The original population came from Bugs of America; and were wild collected (I assume in Arizona).  They were labeled as E. armata, but since that species does not occur in Arizona AFAIK, I've been left guessing.  

 
Ugh, I wasn’t aware that Eleodes will readily hybridize.  Do you happen to know how commonly that happens in captivity? Since these critters are so popular together in communal enclosures, I figured it might not be an issue? I have what is definitely E. armata (the leg spines are long and pointy) kept together with an unknown Eleodes (they look a lot like a confirmed subnitens Im holding in a separate tank). I’m just keeping them together to save space but maybe I should separate them if they’re at risk of hybridizing. 
 

thanks for sharing your Teneb experiences, everyone. These are my main obsession these days. 

 
Honestly I have no idea. And maybe the various species that live in this tank DON'T hybridize and only breed with conspecifics; I have no real way to tell. But given the number of Eleodes out there and my pretty poor ID skills, it's probably beyond me to definitively find out one way or the other. But the biologist inside of me is saying they are most likely hybridizing, it's certainly relatively common in other beetle genera.  I'll try and find some breeding pairs when I'm poking around in there and see if I can grab a picture and figure out if they're the same species or not. But even then, not a guarantee since they may just be going through the motions and not having a successful breeding process.   It's also possible they will only hybridize within their certain species group of Eleodes. 

I need to go back and read through the Eleodes taxonomy revision paper I've got and see if it does't mention hybrid forms.  I'll try and get on that in the next day or three, but it's long and I'm already backed up on my reading list for work, lol.  If anyone else has interest in it though it's "A revision of Eleodes subgenus Eleodes Eschscholtz
(Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)", by CHARLES A. TRIPLEHORN DONALD B. THOMAS & AARON D. SMITH. It was published in the TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, TAES 141: 156-196.  

Edit:  I just ran a quick search through that article and they mentioned hybridization only once (bold emphasis mine):  
 

"Remarks — A variable species, discussed in
the paper on Baja California Eleodes (Triplehorn
1996). In the Cape Region females are very similar
to females of E. eschscholtzi. South of Puerto
Escondido, there is a population in which the
males are very slender and briefly caudate, strongly
resembling E. discinctus. We interpret these
variations as an indication of possible hybridization"   

Probably worth looking into, if nothing else 

 
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This is great information, thanks for passing it along! I’m also backed up with lots of work commitments, but once I get a minute I’ll post some photos of all the species I’m breeding/keeping, and maybe some more practiced eyes can help narrow some IDs. Really great to see these beetles discussed. 

 
It's POSSIBLE, in theory, for Eleodes to hybridize, but in general species found in the same area either can't or won't, and if they do they are usually similar enough in morphology that it's highly possible they are just subspecies or different geological forms of the same species... 

In your case Oogway, both your Eleodes species are from different subgenera, and thus almost certainly could never hybridize, you probably just have them both breeding with conspecifics in the same enclosure. 

 
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