I know, I know, I do not stick to my promises and I haven’t published something new recently. However, this time I have an excellent excuse: Together with Daniel Ambuehl, a mushroom expert and artist, we have been working really hard on our new project: A new Society called ‘Verein Hirschkäfer’ (Stag Beetle Association). […]
READ MORE »Posts in category Breeding Dynastidae
Beetle diseases
Luckily, beetles are not so easily infected with diseases, and it is a rather rare event that a breeder witnesses a disease that kills all his animals. However, there are a few diseases and parasites that do infest beetle larvae. The below is an old article of mine, where I found some of my larvae […]
READ MORE »Breeding Report for Chalcosoma caucasus
This report is based on my experiences according Chalcosoma caucasus in my own breed. I made some mistakes that would have been easy to avoid and that made breeding this species more difficult than it is… I am going to refer to it later on. To begin: I started breeding Chalcosoma caucasus on 12.06.99. My […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 1: The substrat
This article has been migrated from my old pages, and I will update it, once the migration is over. Luckily there have been a few advances in breeding of Dynastes, even so the basic principles remain the same. I guess there are already many breeding reports for this species, so one might ask, why another […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 3: Larval maintenance
Keeping the larvae together is possible, but the containers usually are too big, because you need about 10 litre. substrate per larvae. Although the larvae do not seem cannibalistic, sometimes they hurt each other. This usually happens during the moulting process, when the larvae is soft and vulnerable. Because I am one of those persons, […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 4: Maintaining imagines
After Hatching of the imagos, it takes some time for them to mate. As sometimes males are very aggressive and even attack the females, I would suggest keeping them separated for some time (1 to 6 weeks, whatever, depending on the case) If mating should not work out after that time, you could try a […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 5: Tips for bigger imagines
1. As I mentioned before horse dung should lead to good sizes in Imagos. I mixed in about ten percent of dung to some of my larvae, but I think it should be more to get recognizable results. 2. Always change your substrate before it is all eaten up. Too late change of substrate and […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 6: Subspecies
At the time I originally wrote the breeding report, there have been only 7 subspecies of Dynastes hercules. Nowadays, I lost track on how many have been added, but will hopefully find the time to read that up. Subspecies in Dynastes hercules can be differentiated by the form of the horns in the males and […]
READ MORE »Dynastes hercules breeding and keeping report – Part 7: Weight scales and conclusions
This is old data, but nonetheless valid. Should I start breeding Dynastes hercules again, I would make sure to record the data for the larvae. Or even better, if you have data of your larvae, and want to share it, here would be the perfect place. I am giving you the weights of the larvae, […]
READ MORE »Head sizes of the different larval stages of several beetle species
This is something that I have not recorded for quite some time, but will start doing again. Taking the head measurment of larvae is the safest way to determind which larval stadium the larva is in, more than the weight. Some of the head sizes of beetle larvae are given here. I think it will […]
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