Road Trip From Florida to Georgia and Back

[9-Volt]

Just got back home from a 7 hour drive to and from northwestern Georgia. I was very excited to find some cool insects. It wasn't exactly a vacation though, so we didn't have a whole lot of free time to go out to some nice parks.

As a new beetle enthusiast, my top priority was looking for adults and larvae, especially Dynastes tityus. There was a beautiful park very close to our hotel which is where I chose to search. I only had a few hours to look daily for the past three days, though. I was so happy to see loads of broad-leaved trees, something of a rarity in south Florida. I found quite a few old rotten logs and stumps and dug through them carefully, but I didn't find very much. I also searched tree cavities, the supposed hot spot for D. tityus. I didn't have the tools to dig through tougher parts of wood, unfortunately. I found a few earwigs and what appeared to be "molts," and various other insect parts, slugs, a toad, earthworms, and many tiny "mite" insects. The biggest excitement-killer was finding a long-dead female stag, or what appeared to be a stag, reminded me of some sort of Bess beetle, she was very shiny and black. Having found no adults or larvae, I collected loads of super rotten oak/beech wood and rotted hardwood leaves.

It was only yesterday morning when a beetle was hovering low over the pavement and I quickly jumped to catch her. I'm convinced she's just a June beetle, but I put her in a container and gave her some nice dirt from an old stump and an old banana slice to munch on, which she loves! I did see other beetles flying about but they moved too quickly to be caught. Later that night, I also tried to look for adults near bright lights at gas stations and rest stops on the highway but to no avail. And that sums up my trip to Georgia.