2/4/2022: Growing grantii

The lone female Embaphion contusum from New Mexico wasn’t the last Arizona trip’s only lucky lady. I posted before about a lone female Dynastes grantii, seemingly out of season at our Cave Creek Canyon lighting station, and perhaps touched on her depositing a good set of eggs. It was a painfully long wait, but as far as I could tell every one of these hatched and have been growing insanely quickly.

In roughly December I spotted larvae were eggs were once visible in the old enclosure, and now barely 50 days later I have third instars. I’m really hoping to get good groups of both US native Dynastes species propagating and perhaps focusing in on some seemingly special locales, but for now I am but a wee baby with closing the loop on dynastines.

I was amused to see that grantii are much hairier than tityus, and the growth rate was also a good surprise. Maybe I’ll even have adults this summer, though most beetle folks I have talked to suggest a 1.5-2 year egg-adult timeframe. I have received a few more of this species in swap and may jump the gun and put a page up for them, but I’m behind on pages as is so this may have to wait.

-Kyle