Forbidden Alaus Love & Huckleberry Darkling Beetle Pictures

Well, I made a mistake... I thought all my Alaus were females, and since my A.zunianus was clearly not mated, I threw her in with the lusciosus to save space... Welp, turns out either the zunianus is a male, or one of the lusciosus is (still don't know TBH), because I found them hooked up shortly afterwards... 😓 However, it took them about a week to disconnect, they seemingly could not separate despite obviously trying.

On the plus side, that may be evidence that these two species can not actually hybridize, so I might not have to worry about hybrid offspring. Because apparently their genitalia are not all that compatible and got "jammed" so to speak, came close to being fatal TBH considering how long they were connected, doubt they could have defecated properly under those conditions.

Here are some pics of the nearly fatal union:

They are still eating and seem active, and I've obviously made sure to isolate the two to their own breeding container now in case they can actually create hybrid offspring... But yeeeeaaaahhh, this was a disaster, not only did I learn I can't sex Alaus for shit, but this also reaffirms that keeping two species in the same genus that don't have overlapping ranges in the wild is always just a bad idea, what a stupid mistake I made... 🙃 Guess we will find out soon if A.zunianus and A.lusciosus can create hybrid offspring...

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On a more positive note, the Triorophus/Trimytis larvae are doing well, growing pretty fast and are apparently definitely communal, which is great since it's always a hit or miss with Pimeliinae in that regard... 😅 

All the adults of both species have now developed their full waxy coatings (which had been rubbed off during shipping), an adaptation to desert life that many Tenebs have that prevents them from losing excessive body moisture in dry conditions. I gotta say the Triorophus in particular look like little blueberries, in fact I think that should be the common name for this genus (or at least this species), "Huckleberry Darklings"! 😁 I'd have preferred "Blueberry", but that moniker is sometimes used by people for Asbolus verrucosus... 🙄

Here are some pics of the little huckleberries and the Trimytis:

Triorophus

Triorophus and Trimytis

Trimytis

Both species are so cute, I'm really excited to see which species the larvae belong to (a mix of both would be awesome, but I'm fine with one or the other too).

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