Inside the Pupal Chambers

Hello! 🙂

     Today's post involves a new and exciting niche of beetles that I'm diving into and the specific species featured is probably the cutest of its genus. 😊 On that note, let's get right into things!

     Around a month ago, while in trade talks with one of my buddies, I heard the name "Euphoria inda" come up. I had heard this name before on the beetleforum and so I read up on them a little and was reminded that someone on the forum had been offering them up for sale. Since my aforementioned friend didn't have any available at the time, I went ahead and contacted the person on the forum who did, Stepp Goins who goes by the username "Bugboy3092". We chatted a bit and quickly agreed to a trade! I was under the impression that he had sent me mostly larvae, but upon opening the box, I discovered that he had actually sent exclusively pupal chambers with plenty of freebies included! To be exact, we had agreed to around 17 or so individuals, but he sent 25; a very acceptable number indeed. 😛 Now that we've established what and how many inverts I received, let's chat about the species.

     Euphoria inda is a very nice little beetle officially known as the Bumble Flower Scarab. Although it's species name does mean "clothed" and I think that "Clothed Flower Beetle" would actually be a more suiting name for them as I don't really see much resemblance to bumble bees in them besides the fuzziness and the similar size. I guess they supposedly fly low and with a loud buzzing noise like bumble bees do though, so I guess that gives a bit more justification for the common name. They seem to be pretty variable in coloration over their range with individuals showing orange, red, olive, and multiple shades of brown. My strain seems to show primarily olive coloration on the elytra, dark brown on the pronotum, and the part that isn't variable, beije-colored setae. As with pretty much all members of their genus, they are relatively small beetles only averaging about 13 mm in length. Also common to their genus, they are very fast growers with the time from egg to adult sometimes taking under three months. Probably the main reason that I chose to try culturing these is because the larvae don't require rotten wood in their diet (something that I can't find quantities of easily). Said larvae look like your average backyard "grub" and they are quite easy to pupate being content to form pupal chambers even out of their own frass. Speaking of pupal chambers, out of the 25 that I received, all but 4 have hatched so far! I'm keeping the remaining pupal chambers in a 32 oz. deli cup with some moist coconut fiber and will be moving the resulting adults to the main enclosure when/if they emerge. The main enclosure consists of a 16 qt. enclosure with (if I remember correctly) 17 1/5" holes on each end for ventilation and a moist, 3-4 inch deep mix of compost and crushed dead leaves for the substrate. The ventilation proved to be too plentiful when I had less substrate, but I added a bunch more in recently and so hopefully it is now suitable.

Your have reached your Bumble Flower Scarab photo destination. 

E.inda adults

Underside of adult E.inda

Adult E.inda eating banana

E.inda pupal chamber

E.inda enclosure

I've already promised a few adults to a buddy of mine, but I still can't wait for the ones I'm keeping to start laying as these are reportedly very prolific! 😀 But yeah, I hope that you guys enjoyed hearing about and seeing my little fuzzballs of joy and until next post, goodbye!