Hemiphileurus illatus

Stridulation H. Illatus beetles can produce sound. The sounds are quiet but audible and remind me of cat's purring.  Beetles seem to produce these sounds most frequently when disturbed or agitated, such as when being picked up. This is a video of Beetle B stridulating while being handled. 

This is a record of things I haven't evidence for but that I'm interested in investigating. 1. Once, I woke up in the night because my partner and I heard a sound somewhere in our room. It was loud enough to wake both of us. When we turned on the light, I saw a male H. illatus beetle was an open area of the floor, near the direction of the sound. I think it may have been the beetle, maybe making a louder stridulation for mating, but I'm far from certain. This was in a summer month when adults are very active. I can only describe the sound as a scraping, like two pieces of paper rubbing against each other.  2. I have found three separate sets of H. illatus larvae in batches of two. Each time they were found only several inches from each other. I'd like to establish if this is coincidence and, if not, the reason for this distribution. If females lay eggs in pairs, then larvae must stay relatively close to their hatching location. 

For about 3 years, I've lived and worked in an area of Phoenix where H. Illatus are common, although I grew up in the city and have never seen them anywhere else. Each year, a handful of them crawl into my house or office, and I can sometimes find them when I dig through my compost heap. I've kept them as pets and I think they're very cool so I'd like to give them the attention I think they deserve.  This is my effort to record details of the H. Illatus beetles I keep in captivity. My goal is to get some data about their behavior, lifespans, and life cycles.  July 2022:  I had two adult beetles. I didn't record the exact date I found these two, but by this time I had them for no more than a few weeks. They were both from my backyard. I kept them in a 10' x 5' x 5' acrylic bug box. The box had about two inches of dirt and soil and a layer of moss.  I fed them several times a week, usually a strawberry top or a couple kernels of corn, and eventually 2-3 m

Summary of Captive Larva: Larva X1 - Found February 1, 2020: Pupated, eclosed. Deceased. Larva X2 - Found February 1, 2020: Pupated, eclosed.  Deceased. Larva X3 - Found October 17, 2022. Deceased. Larva A - Found April 3, 2023. Pupated. Deceased. Larva B - Found April 3, 2023. Pupated, eclosed. Still alive. February 2020 . These were found under some bricks in the garden. They pupated sometime later and both were males. I was not recording dates at this point. To the best I'm able to find records of, I found them on February 1 and put them in separate lidless mason jars of their native soil substrate. I dug them up once on March 1 and they were still larvae. On April 15 I dug them up again and they were adults. October 2022 . These were found in my compost heap when I shoveled up some dirt. I looked thoroughly for others but again, there was just a pair. The previous pair were the same size but one of this pair is smaller. Also, when disturbed, the smaller one started pooping, whi

The remains of a female H. illatus. I found her in my house July 30, 2022, when I had been active with a blacklight in the backyard trying to attract bugs. She had a crack in her pronotum, but she was still alive. I put her in a tank with another male and female H. illatus. On Monday morning, I found one of the other beetles eating her remains; I didn't get a photo of that but this is a picture of what was left. I've put the remains back in the tank in hopes they'll come back so I can get a picture. I don't know if she died before they started eating her or if she was just incapacitated. A screenshot from a video. When I put the dead beetle back in the tank and they came back immediately to eat more.   A female H. illatus eating a crushed boiled corn kernel. Inspired by their enthusiasm for dead insects, I started feeding them freshly killed mealworms. They seem to like this food a lot. The pair of adult beetles would go through 2-3 mealworms a week, which is a lot of f