News: the inchworm depupated successfully on Nov. 6! It was Chrysodeixis includens. I dumped the moth on someone's Lantana bush shortly after it molted. Interestingly it was prettier than I thought it would be; I didn't realize it was reflective like bronze/silver satin; the sheen is less apparent in photos. I think I did a somewhat good job of capturing the pleasant coloration here though.
The Nyctoporis carinata female adult I sent Hisserdude has recovered from shipping stress and is still alive in a box somewhere in his house. The larvae at my house are doing well in garden soil and eating assorted vegetables happily. They are now large enough to photograph! Some individuals have very dark brown anteriors and others of the same size have pale orange anteriors but all of them are creamy white and puffy on the rest of their body. They also have sparse hair bristles over their bodies but this isn't visible here. Here is a pic, interestingly it is currently the only online photo of one in existence:
They are slower at walking than both Tenebrio and Zophobas and regularly engage in peristaltic contractions when locomoting (T and Z larvae only seem to peristalse when being grabbed or in tight spaces). They also flop with extreme violence if dug up, much more so than T/Z; however once finished flopping they stop moving for a while. They will make no attempt to rebury themselves for several minutes unless the substrate is vibrating, just like some dung scarabs. If the vibration stops they immediately freeze again. Of course once the several minutes have passed they will dig, vibrations or no vibrations. They cannot dig quickly if dug up, but oddly if feeding on vegetables with only their heads sticking out they can retract just as quickly as Z/T can when frightened.
Unfortunately the Cotinis mutabilis both died during shipping.
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