Specimen of the week: Hermit flower beetle
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Monroe MSUE Diagnostic specimen of the week: This giant grub
came out of the “chocolate egg” pupal case when we broke it open. The
thin-walled “eggs,” which could pass for fecal pellets of some very large
rodent-like creature, are made by the grub for its last winter before changing
to a pupa and then emerging as an adult hermit flower beetle. They were falling
out of an oak tree and this is one of the smaller ones, said the gardener who
brought it in. (We suspect some squirrel may have been cleaning out the tree
hollow they grew up in, or how else could they have fallen?)
The large scarab beetles are occasionally found on flowers as adults but
are not pests. The larvae feed only on rotting wood or associated fungi, etc.,
and are found in tree hollows and rotting stumps, where the eggs are laid by
the adult beetles after mating. They are called hermits apparently because so
much of their life is spent hiding in such places. You can see a photo of the
adult on this page, http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/elytraandantenna/USInsects/RearingOeremicola.html
with rearing instructions. Monroe MSUE secretary Diane Michaud gasped “Why
would anyone want to raise them?!”
