Report about my trials breeding Goliathus

Pre-lude July 2012: Nowadays, Goliathus ssp., at least Goliathus orientalis and Goliathus goliatus are bred from time to time. The key has been protein feeding of the larvae that are really cannibalistic and active hunters. I have tried different types of insects and other protein sources, and just while writing these lines, have my first pupae of Goliathus goliatus.

The following is my article from 1999, in another post, I will then summarize the current status of breeding Goliathus – Something that still is not too easy.

However, there remain many unsolved questions and mysteries about this largest of all Cetonidae.

Goliathus goliatus, larva L3

This report about my experiences with difficulties in breeding Goliathus ssp. is based on experiences I had with larvae in the second stage and those of friends with imagos, eggs and larvae in the first stage. I never read an article about a continuously breeding of Goliathus ssp. Of course there are some people saying they succeeded in breeding but they don’t have striking proofs. Here are my experiences with Goliathus goliatus goliathus.

I had bought 5 larvae in the second stage at the International insect fair in Frankfurt 99. When I bought them (11/07/99), their weight was between 11 and 19 grams.

Larvae 1:  11,5 g

Larvae 2:  12 g, a wound behind it’s had.

Larvae 3:  17 g, the most active one, fast moving

Larvae 4:  13g

Larvae 5:  19g, the fattest one

I kept the larvae separated in one litre boxes. The average temperature was about 22° Celsius. Their substrate contained soft white rotten oak wood and rotten leaves in a relation of  3: 1. I ascertained that the larvae didn’t eat this kind of substrate. So I tried several different kinds of substrate.

–          Wet rotten leaves only

–          Relatively dry leaves only

–          Relatively dry Oak wood only

–          Wet Oak wood only

–          Rotten red oak wood

These mixtures led to the same result: The larvae kept on losing weight…. Now I tried feeding L3 larvae and pupae to the Goliathus larvae and voilá, they started growing. On the 19 November 1999 I was able to observe larvae 5 eating a E. smithi larvae. That one seemed to have died a little bit earlier as it’s colour was getting blackish. After some time, I was able to observe larvae 3 that had bitten a E. smithi larvae in the neck and thus killed it. The E. smithi larvae still was very fresh and the Goliathus larvae had its head in the body bend of the E. smithi larvae. When I hit the container by mistake, the G. larvae was moving backwards very fast. To me it seemed that the goliathus larvae were hunting for other larvae in their container. Pupae of Eudicella, meal worms, Zophobas, worms ( Lumbricus ssp), were taken equally. The larvae didn’t eat any of the substrate in their containers. Dry dog food and dry cat food wasn’t taken by the larvae, it went mouldy very fast and lead to an increasing number of mites. when the larvae were infested by mites to much, their substrate was changed and they themselves were washed with a toothbrush and lukewarm water.

From now on their weight was increasing quickly (See table), but was falling fast, when the larvae were not fed with the larvae didn’t get living prey, or when they were put in bigger containers, filled with more substrate. This way of living didn’t seem to be natural, as larvae 1 died 03/15/00, larvae 3 died 04/29/0, larvae 5 died 05/23/00 and larvae 4 died 05/15/00. Larvae was alive until 01/04/01 and seemed to make a pause, it stopped eating and was losing weight very slow. I don’t know, why the larvae died. Their behaviour changed in so far that they simply got a little bit slowly in the end. I suggest the carnivorous lifestyle was only a makeshift, as I wasn’t able to feed them the right kind of wood. Maybe the larvae feed on other invertebrates only as an additional nutrition.

The weight measure is gram. After the 03/14/00 I was very busy  and thus not able to weigh the larvae.

Until now, I heard two thesis about the inbreedability of Goliathus ssp. (Only suggestions, I don’t take responsibility for their contents):

1. Goliathus are specialised on certain kinds of wood, which is Acacia spec.. That’s why they don’t like the wood species we have in Europe. ( I think it’s the most striking argument)
2. Larvae of Goliathus live in certain temperature cycles and make pauses in certain stages during their development. The breeder, who doesn’t know this and keeps them at the same temperature the whole time, wonders why his larvae died

It’s striking, that Goliath beetle larvae have a high die- off  rate in the first larval stage (friends who tried breeding G. orientalis preissi and G. regius have told me). Those that survived the first stage grow very slowly and die somewhen during their development. I rarely heard of people breeding Goliathus ssp. continuously through more than one generation. I would be happy if there is anybody who had success breeding these species and who tells me about. I want to ask everybody  to think over it carefully before buying Goliathus beetles. Of course they look good, but even if they are breedable they are still very difficult to breed and best tried out by beetle breeding experts. A friend told me that through catching Goliathus in wild, former common beetles became very rare. Megasoma, Dynastes, Mecynorrhina, etc. also are big beetles, in comparison to Goliathus ssp. they are relatively cheap and we know how to breed them.  

Goliathus goliatus L3 larvae

To conclude I want to emphasise that this report is based on my own data.  I ´m grateful for proposals, criticism, hints and Contact to others who tried out Goliath beetle breeding

 Remark 1: Matthias Frei was able to reach the first generation breeding Goliathus goliathus. Last week a female F1 hatched out. Here is a link to his homepage

Remark 2: There are some more breeders that are breeding Goliathus ssp successful feeding larvae and/ or dog’s or cat’s food. Still this species seems to be very difficult to breed continuously and no breeder is reaching big size in his breedings. Although most of the larvae are feeding on dog’s food, always there are some that refuse to feed and to grow and stay small until they die. I still tend to believe that Goliathus ssp. are food specialised like for example Lucanus cervus is on oak, etc. If you have a different opinion or are reaching big size in your breeding please write to me, I really would like to know. ( added July 24. 2002)