New Darklings from Fort Stockton, TX! (Pt. 2)

Continuing from last post, here are the two other Eleodes species I got from Gabe! 😁

Let's start of with a species that's actually been in the hobby on and off for years, Eleodes goryi. I received one female of this species, and they are actually rather easy to breed apparently, the only reason that cultures don't stick around longer than a couple generations is due to a lack of interest I guess. This female seemed a bit weak on arrival but seems to be doing better now, hopefully she lays lots of eggs for me! 😄

Like the other Eleodes spp., I've got my female E.goryi set up in a well ventilated container with a substrate mix of sand and coconut fiber an inch or so deep. I am keeping one third of the enclosure moist, the rest dry. There are some long fibered sphagnum moss strands and cardboard rolls on top for her to hide under. For food I'll be offering dog food and perhaps the occasional bit of fruit.

Here are some pictures of her:

I'm excited to finally get some hands on experience with this species, and this is a new subgenus for me too! (subgenus Promus). Hopefully they'll do as well for me as they do for most other people! 🙂

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Now we get to the last of the new Eleodes I got from Gabe, E.debilis. This species has actually never been in the hobby as far as I know, and marks yet another new subgenus for me, Omegeleodes, which is actually monotypic! So I have no idea how difficult these will be to breed, but I'll give it my all and see if I can find success. 😄

I got a group of 4 females and 1 male, there was another male but he was freshly DOA. Not that that matters terribly, the females are all undoubtedly mated, and four mated females should be WAY more than enough to get a culture started, unless this species ends up being super finicky... 😅

Like the other Eleodes spp., I've got them set up in a well ventilated container with a substrate mix of sand and coconut fiber an inch or so deep. I am keeping one third of the enclosure humid, the rest dry. There are some long fibered sphagnum moss strands, cardboard rolls and old eggcrate pieces on top for hides. For food I'll be offering dog food and perhaps the occasional bit of fruit.

Here are some pics of them:

Female

Male (the dead one, easier to photograph)

Big thanks to my buddy I Fox on Bugguide for identifying this one for me, I highly suspected they were E.carbonaria, I had considered debilis but thought they looked a little too different (granted I was going off of ONE image on bugguide of that species). I wasn't 100% sure on the carbonaria ID though, so I sent these pics to I Fox, and he keyed them out to E.debilis. Just goes to show, when in doubt about an ID, call in your fellow bug nerd friends, and you can usually work it out. 😊

Well, that's gonna do it for this post, thanks for reading, I hope everyone enjoyed, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time! 😉