Dorcus wickhami – an interesting species

For a long time I was hoping to be able to get my hands on the beautiful and small species Dorcus wickhami. They originate from Australia, and as thus are very hard to come by. Even specimen are not so easy to find. This, to my knowledge, is the only species of the genus Dorcus in Australia, and as such quite special.

Dorcus wickhami male F10

They are easily recognizable as Dorcus, even though they seem broader built than most, and the eyes are quite wide apart on their heads. Dorcus wickhami have been bred in captivity before, mainly in Japan, probably also in Australia, and have not made it to Europe, at least to my knowledge. I had the opportunity to get a pair in September 2018, and finally try their breeding by myself. The pair I received were already an F10 generation, and this makes me hope that they are hopefully past any genetic bottleneck that would make their continuous breeding complicated.

I hence set them up the way I would other Dorcus as well, so in a 40 Liter container, filled with rotten sawdust, which was compacted at the bottom. On this I placed several pieces of white rotten wood of varying degrees of hardness. Some had been decomposed by mushrooms of the genus Trametes, other by a species of Ganoderma. I was not quite sure whether the beetles were doing anything, as I rarely saw them eat, and because the box in general felt rather uninhabited. They lived for about 4 months, and then died. I had them at around 20-24 degree Celsius.The beetles were fed with high protein beetle jelly.

That said, I checked the box today, in order to separate the larvae, if there were any, and was pleasantly surprised to find 23 larvae, from L1 to very early L3. They were, not unusual, for Dorcus all inside the wood pieces, and had them chewed very much into dust, which made their retrieval easier than usual. I have them now in 500ml boxes filled with white rotten wood and flake soil. I am happy that I will probably be able to see the next generation hatch and get them established in our European breedings.

I will post more pictures once the next generation of beetles hatches. Let me know if you want to exchange for something then, so we can get them into more breeders’ hands. Dorcus wickhami is an awesome species, and I hope we can establish them in our breedings, especially as reimports are very unlikely. With all the destruction of natural habitats, and the unlucky tightening of laws against collecting and breeding of exotic species, we need to show that we can keep these gems of nature for our future generations. Zoos have their hands full with the bigger species, and it’s up to us, the hobbyists, to do our share and maintain  these species in captivity.

Cheers.