I spotted some eggs the day after I rehoused them, at the bottom of their enclosure in the coconut fiber, and so thought that they must need a vertical humidity gradient to induce oviposition, and that they maybe preferred coconut fiber to the sandy mix I had given them as far as oviposition goes. However, I found larvae around two days later, and there is simply no way their eggs hatch that fast, so they've obviously been laying eggs for longer than I thought, I just couldn't see them as well in the sandy substrate. 😅
So nice to finally have gotten some offspring from this large species, I'll of course take some pictures once the larvae get a little bit bigger, for now I'll be leaving them alone. In the meantime, here are some pictures of a bunch of males feeding on some apple, (I'm collecting a bunch for someone, as I myself have no use for males at this point, and unlike females they are relatively abundant outside):
Looking forward to rearing this species, hopefully I can get some nice sized CB adults! 😄
Also, another positive Eleodes update, surprisingly some of my E.nigrina larvae are starting to construct pupal cells already! 😃 Was not expecting them to mature so fast! 😅 So far the egg output has been rather low with this species, and the larvae definitely seem to prefer a more humid substrate than I thought they would, but other than that they appear to be hardy and evidently are quite fast growing!
I've isolated the larger larvae that were making cells and moved them to 2 oz deli cups with an inch of moist, compressed coconut fiber inside. They've made pupal cells again, and I'll be sure to post pictures of a pupa once they start pupating! 😁
Anyways, that's gonna do it for this post, hope everyone enjoyed, thanks for reading, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉
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