I go into caterpillar debt

Last morning I found some Manduca sexta caterpillars on a half-dead tomato bush. "Why not play w them for a while", I thought to myself.

I played w them and dumped three of the four back onto the bush after a while.

The fourth one (which has an unusually large quantity of black stripes by the way) got its horn tip broken during handling and began leaking alarmingly large quantities of hemolymph from the injury site. I blame myself to some degree for this, I kept the caterpillars a bit too close to each other and one of the others probably bit or tore its horn accidentally. Not sure how it happened though, I had a feeling such a thing was going to happen and tried to prevent it before it even started but somehow it happened anyways.

As compensation for the unethics I am keeping it in a jar for a while, where microwasps are guaranteed not to oviposit in it and I can stuff its face with tasty tomato lumps. Although the animal seems to have difficulty sealing the leak (it has continued exuding hemolymph droplets from its horn intermittently throughout yesterday and today, especially when I am handling it during container cleaning), its health has not been significantly affected at all, which is good.

Anyways, here's the captive specimen I guess.

A pretty picture

 I'm not actually a fan of photographing pretty things for its own sake, but many of you seem to enjoy my photography a lot so here's a pic of my brownish C. mutabilis male being fashionable I guess. The less brown one fell straight into the watermelon juice (how can their motor skills be so poor, sheesh) and wouldn't hold still when it crawled out of the sugar puddle.

First N. carinata larva found!

 Need I say more?

Deformed Female presumably dies

The deformed female C. mutabilis specimen ran away a few days ago and hasn't been seen since, I blame my low sanity (and resulting lack of energy) for causing this. It's probably starved to death by now.

Since flightless mutabilis specimens seem to be perpetually sad when not busy feeding/sleeping perhaps it was better off dead anyways [sigh].

I become a teneb nursery

 

My Nyctoporis carinata specimen has been gluing white eggs all over the surface of its garden soil! Unfortunately it is still running around in circles and being stressed for some incomprehensible reason.

AAAAAAAAA

 The N. carinata specimen has increased in desperation and is now running in circles as fast as its broken legs will take it (which is still not that fast) whenever it is awake. I've tried everything I could think of and none of it works.

Not again

 Last night I saw my Nyctoporis carinata specimen repeatedly (but very slowly, since most of its legs are broken) pacing back and forth around a single area near the cage wall and trying to climb it. When I changed its substrate from paper to soil, it began walking in circles around the edge (my container is round) and continued to make climb attempts.

This isn't good. Some of you may recall that the thing I tentatively IDed as Gonocephalum and also most of the Coniontis I tried to keep exhibited the same behavior, and that no one knows why this happens. I hate problems like this, I followed all the protocols for proper tenebrionid care and it still keeps happening. Besides, since the nycto has no desire to hide under objects, we can rule out the "unsuitable hiding areas" possibility I had hypothesized the Coniontis were suffering from.

I'm flattered

 

Thanks for drawing my Cotinis mutabilis males!

Image credits: @binaphobia

Same rufipes appears again

The specimen pictured here and here has appeared yet again, I guess this is its fifth or sixth appearance or something. This is not a very important piece of information but I guess I enjoy seeing the same one appearing every few nights. Also I've still never seen more than one living rufipes specimen at a time this year so it's likely the only adult alive right now.

...But to be honest I'm getting tired of posting it repeatedly, I guess I'll stop.

Cotinis arty post

(note: this is just a mockup; the Domino campaign will continue to be dormant for the foreseeable future)

Extra distinctive I guess

I've seen this specimen at least three times already. I know because it has the same half-broken antenna and missing middle tarsus on its left side as the one pictured in my previous post. Not particularly surprising though, after all they seem very reluctant to leave their host.