ow

Gradually catching additional C. magna for use in saproxylic program, plus diabolicals, Dictyssa-type nymphs, and also a giant black Elater. The European E. ferrugineus is described as being easy to rear but also painfully slow-growing (4-7 years for larval maturation, but apparently able to mature without carnivory and tolerates poor hygiene well) and under severe conservation danger due to its need for large-diameter rotten wood, and while American Elater are apparently poorly studied I found mine in an enormous stump so it's probably of conservation value too. Gonna be a useful asset for my "make habitat for saproxylic insects and then put the insects in them" project, especially because E. ferrugineus is said to be so dispersal-limited that it affects genetic structure.



Interestingly the stump in question is that big burnt oak(?) at Santa Fe Dam Nature Center, presumably planted as an ornamental, and oaks are not locally native to that habitat (they avoid the soft chaparral due to its drier nature, they're more of a hard chaparral [although I have seen drier hard chaparrals with no oaks] and arid sclerophyll forest thing here if you ask me), so I'm a bit concerned my specimen may have anthropogenically microevolved in a problematic direction, but the long generation times, general absence of large human-sourced deadwood in soft chaparrals here (thus less ability for microevo to happen), and the fact that I could probably water down the unwanted genes with sclerophyll forest genotypes should I ever find a second individual means I've decided I'm going to keep this specimen for now.

Also shaking my head at a few papers that're like "E. ferrugineus adult doesn't feed!" even though it's pretty well documented to fly to fermented sweet baits (my own Elater was likewise happy to drink sugar and chew fruit). Geez, when will people stop slapping "aphagous" arbitrarily on random bugs?