Bean beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus

[PhilinYuma]

A couple of coincidences. I recently read in the Carolina science catalog that they have started selling this weevil; today is the BD of member Jean, who advertised it a few months ago and received no posted replies, and the current issue of Invertebrates Magazine (just can't let it go, can I? :lol: ) has a mini-article on micro-beetles, though not

this one, the first of three.

I have a constant culture of flour beetles and only keep them to feed as a last resort, since the chitinrotein ratio seems pretty high. Callosobrochus maculatus, also called the cow pea weavil, is just over 2mm (about the same size as drugstore beetle,Stagobium paniceum) and rather smaller than my flour beetles (Trilobium/Tenebrio spp., I think that I have T. castaneum) which are about 4mm long and skinny.

They are no harder to keep than flour beetles, just toss them in with a substrate of mung beans or chick peas and they are ready to go, completing a life cycle about once per month. Their sex life is so exciting and violent (the male regularly injures the female during copulation, and she kicks him violently that I won't post it on this family oriented forum.

I haven't decided to buy them yet. Does anyone have information that may persuade me one way or the other?

 

[hibiscusmile]

I have them to, but the mantis do not seem to like them.

 

[DannyN]

I have them to, but the mantis do not seem to like them.

Rebecca let me know if you dont want them. I have plenty of chameleons that love them!

 

[DannyN]

Double post

 

[Orin]

They are bigger than you think Phil. They're sort of neat and requre zero care but most invertebrates don't like to eat them.