Captive Bred Ampedus Larva (Yes, Another Click Beetle Post).

In the summer of 2014, I found some freshly cut pine logs in a campground. There were Alaus melanops adults on it, as well as a few Ampedus apicatus and a TON of reddish-brown Ampedus sp. I caught a dozen of the reddish Ampedus, and put them in my mixed click beetle cage. They all died after a few weeks, and a month or so later I noticed some tiny tunnels in the substrate, apparently from the larva of this species.

After that I went through periods of forgetting that the cage even existed, and the substrate would dry out completely sometimes in between waterings. The larva did not seem to mind it at all, these guys can take a lot of neglect. However, I had put some Aeolus sp adults in the cage, and their vicious offspring ate each other along with lots of my Ampedus larva.

So, after well over a year of bad care, I have dug through the substrate and found the remaining four larva and moved them to their own little containers. I will be checking on them more frequently and will be feeding them more protein than before. Hopefully four is enough to start a colony.

I am using my homemade rotten wood (see last post), and some dead leaves as the substrate and food, and will be giving them small pieces of cat food every now and again.

Here are some pictures of the largest larva:

Ampedus sp larva

Hopefully I can successfully rear these to adulthood, I would love to keep breeding this species, and to get some pictures of the adults. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this post, next time I will try to post about something not related to click beetles, lol! :)
P.S: The unidentified click beetle larva in my last post was identified as a Melanotus cf. castanipes.