Breeding report for Dicranocephalus wallichi uenoi

 

A male, wild caught

 

This is a breeding report for a species that usually is known as difficult or impossible to breed. I found that if some measurements are taken, successful breeding and keeping of this species is not too difficult. First, I would like to thank Jack Lee (Taiwan), who made it possible for me to get some pairs of Dicranocephalus wallichi uenoi. But I have to thank Jahn Oldrich as well, because without his hints a successful breeding of this species would not have been possible.

The first difficulty in breeding is making the females lay eggs. I had them on normal substrate, like for other flower beetles and nothing happened. Only when you are adding fresh leaves (Apple and Plum (Prunus ssp.)) you will get eggs. It is very interesting to see that the females are taking the leaves from the surface, fold them  and dig them in. After doing that they are laying one egg in this small „package“. After two to four weeks, the larvae are hatching out. Keeping the larvae makes no problems. I had them on a mixture of leaves and compost, and they were growing quite fast. As I heard quite late of the egg laying trick, I only had two larvae, which were a pair (Luckily).

A female feeding on banana

 

The next step, that sometimes poses difficulties is to get the larvae through a successful pupation. The clue is, that they will only pupate in clay. And it is very important that the layer of clay is under the layer of substrate. As I only had two larvae I took a two litre glass, filled with one litre of clay and one litre of substrate. Take care that the clay is only slightly humid. Too much moisture kills... Ahh, Thomas Libich reminded me that it is good to separate the larvae fro pupation, because he found that they were destroying each others cocoons...  After putting the larvae in, everything I had to do was waiting. I guess, I kept them too warm during pupation, because they were hatching out in January. As I had no fresh leaves, they did not lay eggs, although they were mating. I guess breeding of other Dicranocephalus ssp. is the same, I would be happy if I could try out once. So if you have some overstock, please do write to me, I always welcome exchange... I am always happy for a feedback..

Thank you

 

Benjamin

 

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Copyright © B.Harink
Stand: 06. November 2007.