Rhinoceros and stag beetles: Three species breeding results of the Genus Dorcus

I have ever bred three species of the Genus Dorcus .

Their scientific names are Dorcus hopei binodulosus , Dorcus grandis moriyai & Dorcus hopei hopei .

According to some researches , we all know that the vast majority of Dorcus females only oviposit in decayed wood .

So i always laid some decayed wood in the bottom of the breeding containers , whether it is vertical or horizontal , both available .

In my cases , i got bone dry decayed wood from dedicated shops .

When i was going to set up a breeding container , i picked out some decayed wood whose hardness was proper for Dorcus females to oviposit in it .

Then , i placed the decayed wood vertically in a tub which had been filled some water , then , putting stones on the top of the wood to fix them thoroughly .

If the water had been absorbed totally , i would add water in the tub until the wood was filled with water .

Before placing the wood in the tub , i had weighed the wood , then , weighing the moist wood again , through the weight comparisons , i could know the wood moisture and adjust the humidity by absorbing water or drying out .

In the wild , females of stag beetles will ingest proteins by preying other insects , in captive breeding , i employed fishmeal as the protein source , i often sprinkled fishmeal on the jelly to feed them .

Once a breeding container had been prepared , i put a fertilized female in the container about one month and kept the breeding temperature in the range of 20 - 25 degrees Celsius .

As a reminder , D. h. h. females had a good chance to hibernate when the temperature was too low , so i bred them at room temperature in the end of spring and the beginning of summer .

For me , to retrieve the L1 larvae from hard decayed wood was not a easy thing , hence , after taking the female out of the breeding container , i would wait more than one month to retrieve the larvae .

Thus , i could break open the wood and retrieve the larvae easily , because most of the eggs had hatched and formed many tunnels inside the wood .

In this way , most of the larvae were old L1 or young L2 larvae , so i could put them into the prepared kinshi bottles directly or use fermented decayed wood flakes to feed them .

A breeding container had been set up on May 10th 2010 , i laid a piece of decayed wood in the bottom of the container and used decayed wood flakes to cover the wood .

I put a D. h. h. female into the breeding container , then , taking it out of the container on June 13th 2010 .

2010-6-21 , i seen a larva in the bottom of the container , which means that the female laid eggs immediately when she was being put into the container .

2010-7-2 , i broken open the decayed wood with bare hand , but the middle portion of the decayed wood was still hard , so i put it back , this time , i just retrieved larvae from the decayed wood flakes and the soft portion of the wood chunk .

In the second time , i found the rest ten larvae in August 2010 .

Those larvae was fed on fermented decayed wood flakes , and turned into adults in May 2011 .

I bred Dorcus hopei binodulosus and Dorcus grandis moriyai on July 20th 2011 and July 28th 2011 respectively .

The females were taken out of the containers on August 21st 2011 and August 28th 2011 respectively .

I used a piece of hard decayed wood to breed Dorcus hopei binodulosus and retrieved L2 larvae on October 1st 2011 , i put them into the prepared kinshi bottles , finally , the adults emerged in July 2012 .

As for Dorcus grandis moriyai , i used a piece of middle decayed wood and a piece of soft decayed wood as the oviposition medium , i retrieved L1 larvae from the wood chunks , the female was not picky about wood hardness .

After retrieving the larvae , i used the prepared kinshi bottles to rear them , eventually , the adults emerged in August 2012 .

For the three species , each harvest could achieve up to ten plus normally ,so i had prepared sufficient jars and food before retrieving larvae .

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