Click Beetle & Pasimachus Updates!!

Finally, after years of waiting, my Alaus melanops grub has matured!! 😁 I could have gotten it to pupate months after I originally caught it in 2014, but I never provided it with a little log to dig into before, apparently larvae of this species will refuse to pupate without a block of wood to bore into and construct their pupal cell in, they'll even put the process off an extra two years if they need to!

Well, I must say, for a larva that put off it's pupation so long, it turned into a nice sized adult male!! (at least I really think it's a male). It emerged from it's log after a lengthy three month or so inactivity period, honestly I was beginning to wonder if it had died or not! I have it housed with my Pyrophorus adults, (more on them shortly), since they have pretty much the same care requirements and can't hybridize.

Here are some pictures of the Alaus adult:

And here are a couple shots of the Alaus adult with my small Pyrophorus male, for comparison:

I'm so happy I was finally able to rear this specimen to maturity, too bad I don't have any females for him...

In other click beetle related news, another one of my original three Pyrophorus noctilucus has matured and dug it's way up to the surface, so now I have two active adults! This second one is quite a bit bigger than my original adult, and may be a female! I know my older, smaller adult is a male, since once it came into contact with the new adult, he chased it around and tried to mate with it, even exposing and extending his genitalia.

The new individual just ran away from those mating attempts, and never attempted to mount and mate with the smaller male, which makes me think it's a female! Time will tell I suppose! 😊

Here is a picture of them both snacking on an apple slice:

My last remaining individual from the original trio has also eclosed now, and will hopefully claw it's way up to the surface in a week or two! With any luck, I may have offspring from this species soon!

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The other day, I decided to move my Pasimachus sp. "Arizona" to a smaller container, the reason being that they were having a hard time finding food in the larger container I had them in. They are quite old now, both individuals have lost most of their tibia, and while the female is still largely intact, the male is on his last legs, literally, a few of his legs are just little nubs now.

Anyway, I moved the adults to a smaller enclosure, and dumped most of the remaining substrate from their old enclosure into a ziplock bag for a few days, since I was planning on using it for a future Tenebrionid rehousing, (hey, waste not want not! The substrate was pretty clean and suitable for future use). Well yesterday I went to rehouse those Tenebs, (specifically Embaphion cf. contusum), and as I was adding the old Pasimachus substrate to their new enclosure, a long, dark shape came crawling out... A first instar Pasimachus larva!!! 😮

The LAST thing I was expecting from my old, run-down Pasimachus adults was offspring, especially since my female already laid an egg a few months ago that never hatched. I'm thrilled to have gotten a larva from this species, I'm really hoping I can rear it to adulthood, but with my previous track record breeding Carabids, I'm a bit doubtful.

I have moved it to a little deli cup with some of the substrate from the old Pasimachus cage, (a coconut fiber and sand mixture), which I am keeping fairly moist. I will be trying to feed it pre-killed mealworms and small roach nymphs, and maybe some live Trichorhina tomentosa.

Here are some pictures of the little bugger:

Very cool looking Carabid larvae, will be keeping you guys updated on it's progress! Considering how hard Carabid larvae are to rear, I'm not getting my hopes up too high that I will be able to rear it to adulthood, however, I do know of someone who has successfully done so before, so who knows? 🙂

Well, that is going to do it for today, I hope everyone enjoyed, will see you all next time! 😉