#beetle behavior

[spontaneousdemonicscreeching]

An Attempt Was Made

There was a tiny beetle on my desk that I wanted a closer look at so like any sane person I impaled it on a safety pin.

It

didn’t 

die

The thing kept wiggling and I didn’t want it to squash it and make it impossible to look at properly but I did want it dead so I stuck it in a bowl of water to drown.

It is at the bottom of the bowl clinging to a bubble for dear life and it STILL LIVES.

WHY

[phanaeus-vindex-blog]

Behavioral Notes 2

I spent some time with my beetles today, since I got home early from school and they were pretty active. I spotted both females and the male collecting dung today. To make up for vinny passing, I collected another female, this will be the last beetle I am collecting from the wild unless all of my females die. I noticed my dung in my yard not being collected as fast as usual, so I don't want to take any more and have no next generation.

I noticed a LOT more of those little bugs hanging on them now, and all over the dung. The book says they aren't harmful, but so many of them! It's kind of creepy. When I see the beetles out I might give them a little bath to at least keep the population from getting crazy!

Never give them poop of irregular shape. I watched a female awkwardly try and roll a potato chip type piece for about fifteen minutes before she gave up and used another piece. I admit it was pretty funny though.

Not much to report, I've been leaving them alone for a while and giving them a lot more dung in hopes of getting my first brood ball. I'm worried that some of them will die underground and I won't get to have their bodies. But whatever.

[phanaeus-vindex-blog]

Behavioral Notes 1

Behavioral Notes are when I talk about their behavior (pretty self explanatory) and things I have noted. All will be under read mores and tagged "#beetle behavior"

I learned pretty quickly that these beetles aren't the smartest tools in the shed. For various reasons I will list.

They don't have the best vision either. A female was circling the yard looking for some food, and she slammed right into my shed with an audible CRACK, but like a trooper she kept flying and landed ok. I admit I laughed pretty hard, but felt bad for the poor dear and captured her for my tank.

They dig into the ground for absolutely no reason, and then just chill there. It's really strange! I was digging dirt for my tank when I found a random female in the dirt, and later found my tank beetles did the same thing.

With six beetles in a jar and two of them being males, I assumed that there would be fighting but they COMPLETELY IGNORED EACH OTHER. Even when the beetles walked into each other they just awkwardly turned away or walked over each other.

Different beetles have different personalities, sort of. Of the six beetles I placed in my tank, all of them wandered off and dug into the dirt except one. She ran into the side of the tank for five minutes, repeatedly trying to fly and hit the side of the tank. I decided to let her go free, so I opened the top of the tank for her and it still took her several tries to fly out of the tank. She immediately landed on a pile of poop and buried it. They are very ungraceful and dumb so I'm not really worried about any of them escaping any time soon :P

Not a behavioral thing, but I found three other burrows in my yard from beetles, when I was a kid I always wondered about that, and now I know what they belong to! Very cool.

So as you can see, this is a very long post. The others will probably be a lot shorter in the future.