American carrion beetles from fly traps

Recently I started to notice some large beetles in my fly traps, before I solved the pest problem. From photo identifying it seems the majority of them are American carrion beetles.

I emptied one of my fly traps into a container and captured six live beetles, and had about a dozen dead ones. Seems four are the carrion beetles, and the other two I'm not sure (perhaps newly molted adults?). One of the unknown has a red thorax instead of yellow, and it is shaped differently - the other seems to be solid black.

Odd it seems I have two mating beetle pairs; however, I know some of the dead beetles mated and laid eggs as I have found some of the fast larva hiding/digging within the old manure (I was not able to capture any to photograph).

At the moment I moved the beetles into a habitat for observation. Anyone keep these beetles? Due to their food source I doubt I will keep them, as the smell of rotten meat is too much.

They are all carrion beetles in the family Silphidae, you seem to have attracted three different species. The large ones with the yellow on the pronotum are Necrophila americana and I'm not sure about the other two.

You can use hamburger meat. They like it fresh.

I've never kept the black or pink species. Wish I could find them around here.

Orin said:

You can use hamburger meat. They like it fresh.

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I added some fresh ground sirloin hamburger lol (it's what I had).

Orin said:

I've never kept the black or pink species. Wish I could find them around here.

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That is too bad; however, if your interested I'd be willing to set some extra traps for them and ship them to you for a small trade or just cover shipping. Let me know, as I did have about a dozen or so beetles that were dead in the traps before I noticed them and caught the ones in the photos, so it seems there are some in my area.

I would be interested in getting six or so of the pink ones especially. I only say six to ensure there are both genders. I don't have a lot to trade but I might have something you'd be interested in like back issues of invertebrates magazine.

Orin said:

I would be interested in getting six or so of the pink ones especially. I only say six to ensure there are both genders. I don't have a lot to trade but I might have something you'd be interested in like back issues of invertebrates magazine.

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Sounds fair to me, and rather interesting as I have yet not read the magazine. I already set out more traps earlier just in case, and I'll let you know when I get enough (likely somewhere around a week depending on the beetles).

Actually, the adult beetles feed mainly on maggots they find within carrion, not just the carrion itself... So I imagine you could feed them on bluebottle maggots or maybe even waxworms, mealworms etc. Although their larvae require carrion so breeding them could be rather disgusting, but who knows maybe they'll accept dry dog food or something. The larvae look interesting as well, sort of like elongated woodlice or cockroaches.

Salmonsaladsandwich said:

Actually, the adult beetles feed mainly on maggots they find within carrion, not just the carrion itself... So I imagine you could feed them on bluebottle maggots or maybe even waxworms, mealworms etc. Although their larvae require carrion so breeding them could be rather disgusting, but who knows maybe they'll accept dry dog food or something. The larvae look interesting as well, sort of like elongated woodlice or cockroaches.

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Nothing to worry about then. There is leftover hamburger I have been feeding them and I have been leaving it as is. Thankfully the fine mesh lid I have on the container, and the small amount of leftover meat, has made the odour unnoticeable as of yet.

Indeed the larva are interesting aliens, and extremely fast.

Still finding a occasional yellow headed carrion in my traps, but I have never found another black or pink headed variety. The ones I had in a glass container inside were doing fine for several weeks and laid several eggs.

I only really saw one of their nymphs though, I assume it ate it's sibblings. Here is a photo of it before I released the remaining beetles/larvae.