Dynastes Granti

[DynastesDee]

Hi everyone, I stayed at my friend’s cabin for 2 nights looking for Dynastes granti. The first day I arrived there looking on ash trees and found a cottonwood stag beetle in a sycamore tree. The second and third day we found a total of 36 hercules beetles and a Xyloryctes. We have decided that I will keep all the females and large males for breeding and give them some larvae with substrate. Even though the females were most likely paired in the wild.

[BensBeasts1]

Wow that’s a lot. How is everyone finding so many beetles?

[I_want_hopei]

Not everyone, including me

[Ficusfarmer]

On 9/4/2020 at 10:43 PM, DynastesDee said:

Hi everyone, I stayed at my friend’s cabin for 2 nights looking for Dynastes granti. The first day I arrived there looking on ash trees and found a cottonwood stag beetle in a sycamore tree. The second and third day we found a total of 36 hercules beetles and a Xyloryctes. We have decided that I will keep all the females and large males for breeding and give them some larvae with substrate. Even though the females were most likely paired in the wild.

DynastesDee PM sent

[Garin]

On 9/4/2020 at 10:43 PM, DynastesDee said:

Hi everyone, I stayed at my friend’s cabin for 2 nights looking for Dynastes granti. The first day I arrived there looking on ash trees and found a cottonwood stag beetle in a sycamore tree. The second and third day we found a total of 36 hercules beetles and a Xyloryctes. We have decided that I will keep all the females and large males for breeding and give them some larvae with substrate. Even though the females were most likely paired in the wild.

Wow, way to go! Its not easy getting D grantii off of ash trees in the daytime. I have heard they can be pretty high up on the Ash trees. Not many people have done it. I'm too lazy and just setup a MV light and let them come to me. But I would like to try it some day, though its hard work, I think it would be fun. Just FYI, most of the time there is no need to mate the wild caught females to breed. I usually just catch a few females and put them in a bin and they lay eggs no problem without any males. However, it doesn't hurt to have males in there too. Thanks for sharing.

[Dynastes]

21 hours ago, Garin said:

Wow, way to go! Its not easy getting D grantii off of ash trees in the daytime. I have heard they can be pretty high up on the Ash trees. Not many people have done it. I'm too lazy and just setup a MV light and let them come to me. But I would like to try it some day, though its hard work, I think it would be fun. Just FYI, most of the time there is no need to mate the wild caught females to breed. I usually just catch a few females and put them in a bin and they lay eggs no problem without any males. However, it doesn't hurt to have males in there too. Thanks for sharing.

So do you see a lot of ash trees in the areas you find the beetles? Arizona ash (Fraximus velutina)? D. granti was named for Fort Grant after Grant and possessive names in Latin end in -i (not -ii). Double -ii is common for certain last names like silvestrii (but the original name was Silvestri so there's really only one -i. I'm guessing the new doule -ii in grantii is from a mistake in the original description but I haven't seen it? 

[DynastesDee]

Yes, there were a lot of ash and sycamore trees where I collected the Dynastes granti adults.