Killer Phileurini - Or - WITHIN THIS ISSUE How Come Some Diplos Are Hairy? Killer Phileurini
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SCARABS Hon k’wat dech’ap’ba, a:wiyanna Occasional Issue Number 20 Print ISSN 1937-8343 Online ISSN 1937-8351 August, 2007 Killer Phileurini - or - WITHIN THIS ISSUE How Come Some Diplos Are Hairy? Killer Phileurini ................ 1 Dispatches Speculations from the Diplo Desk - Part 4 NSF Funds Scarab Research ........................... 22 by Scott McCleve 2210 E. 13th Street In Past Years - II ............. 23 Douglas, AZ 85607 [email protected] Letter to the Editors ....... 26 Have you held a living Phileurini (= (1959, Bull. So. Cal. Acad. Sci. 58 “phileurine”) in your hand? Are you [1]:27-33), to wit, “In two cases sure it was alive? How could you scarab larvae were present in the tell? It pretty much did nothing, roots, in one instance associated right? A few Hemiphileurus illatus with the adult scarab, Phileurus (LeConte) have pooped a semi- illatus LeConte [=Hemiphileurus liquid smear on my hand. But illatus (LeConte)], which had otherwise a live phileurine in the worked its way up a burrow in hand might be dead, except for a root and destroyed a larvae of the resistance they exert when you Plinthocoelium.” BACK ISSUES Available At These Sites: try to move something, like a leg. They are kind of like those iron- Mont Cazier, a student of Coleopterists Society clad tenebrionid beetles that go predatory behavior in scarabs, www.coleopsoc.org/ catatonic when you handle them. and co-author M. A. Mortenson, nwslttrs.shtml Most scarabs go quiescent and noted (1965, J. Kansas Ent. Soc., University of Nebraska tuck in all their appendages, but 38:1:29) that “This [see just above] www-museum.unl.edu/ they soon begin to fidget and try to appears to be the first and only research/entomology/ escape. Not the Phileurini. These record on feeding behavior in this Scarabs-Newsletter.htm are different beetles. They act like tribe and indicates that on at least they are protected somehow. one occasion the adults may be EDITORS Rich Cunningham predaceous.” [email protected] The association of the phileurine species Hemiphileurus illatus, In his review of my first version of Barney Streit the cerambycid Plinthocoelium this paper Doctor Art Evans, Ph. D. barneystreit@hotmail. suaveolens plicatum (LeConte) sent me a proof copy of his then in- com and the living host of this beetle, press paper (1989, Evans, A. V. and Bill Warner Bumelia lanuginosa (Michx.) Pers., A. Nel, Notes on Macrocyphonistes [email protected] was reported by Linsley and Hurd kolbeanus Ohaus and Rhizoplatys auriculatus [Burmeister], with H. illatus (LeConte), out in what comments on their melittophilous was mostly just open Sonoran habits. Journal of the Entomological Desert at a lighted billboard by a Society of Southern Africa 51 [2]: bar at Scottsdale Road and Shea 45-50) in which they reported on Boulevard north of Scottsdale, these two Phileurini as predators on Maricopa Co., Arizona, 1360 feet bee brood in commercial hives in (415 m), on 17 July 1967. I pinned South Africa and Mozambique. it on a Styrofoam block to dry. The block went into a desk drawer In 1989 Art told me of a mention in that provided protection from a large tome (title not recollected, dust, but allowed air circulation. published by Junk) on honeybees I expected this beetle to dry up in which one American species, P. for placement in one of the cigar Plinthocoelium didymus, was implicated in invading boxes that housed my collection suaveolens plicatum. bee hives. If true, then this native way back then. Even in the Gleeson, Arizona American beetle is an opportunistic Arizona monsoon, beetles will dry. July, 1991 predator capable of adapting to Three days later I got two males of exploit the Old World honeybee. the same species, and they dried up quite in the manner I approved Art also (2007 pers. comm.) of in beetles of this size—about 25 informed me of another citation of mm. predatory Phileurini (1997, Moron, M.A., et al., Atlas de los Escarabajos But the 17 July female refused to de Mexico, Vol. I) where, p. 90 (my dry. Rather, she swelled up so that translation), Phileurus didymus I could see the whitish membranes (L.) “adults have been observed stretched tightly at both ends of preying on other dynastines such her pronotum—it seemed that as Heterogomphus chevrolati she could explode at any moment. Burmeister whose abdomen was However, the most remarkable ripped open with the mandibles and thing was how she stunk. Putrid fore tibiae to consume the visceral is not the word. Putrid with a contents.” Also, in the Moron sickening miasmatic fulsome volume I found another citation on sweetish element is closer—but page 88: adults of Hemiphileurus still not accurate. dejeani (Bates) “were observed attacking and devouring larvae I was familiar with Shakespeare’s of Passalidae and Tenebrionidae.” Hamlet by then, and the line No sources for these fascinating (act 1, scene 4) familiar probably observations were given. in many languages, leaped to mind “Something is rotten in the Hamlet and the Incredible state of Denmark” day after day Stinking Female All that follows as I checked this specimen. An flows from this single stinking unexpected whiff of corruption specimen. It is remarkable how engages more than one’s olfactory certain smells, both fragrances and lobes. That famous line lodged in stenches, lodge in one’s memory. I some neural nexus + that unique Page 2 got my first phileurine, a female of stench + this particular sort of beetle. I never got the stink again, Small storms of seven-year-old but phileurine beetles came again electrical circuits reviving and and again, accompanied by the line new ones being created occurred about corruption. in my momentarily arrested brain: that line from Shakespeare + that A seed was planted in my mind: same species + the memory of that Whatever could she have been stink! It was suddenly dawning eating? I had an early intimation on me that this beetle could be a right here that there was something predator! interesting in the diet and behavior of these beetles. I was lucky that my Adventures with Archophileurus first-captured member of this tribe Flash forward another seven proved to be so unusually aromatic. years to 14 July 1980. On this date the late Lester Lampert Thus began a series of very showed me where (AZ: Cochise entertaining little discoveries and Co., 1.3 km W of Portal, 1481 mysteries and revelations that m [4859 feet]) he had once (see accumulated for over 20 years, one just below) collected specimens small observation clicking into place of the flightless Archophileurus with another. cribrosus (LeConte). I was eager to collect this species, so that A Male H. illatus Caught With evening at dusk I searched the His Horn Wet Flash forward vicinity of Lester’s spot with a seven years to 4 July 1973: AZ: headlamp and over perhaps three Hemiphileurus illatus Cochise County, near Double hours I found three (one male, two Female (top) Adobe, 4050 feet (1234 m). I was females) rather widely dispersed Male (bottom) collecting in mid afternoon a series A. cribrosus specimens crawling, of that fabulous cerambycid beetle, with antennae extended, slowly Plinthocoelium suaveolens plicatum and apparently aimlessly, over (LeConte) in a grove (actual trees the mostly bare gravelly soil. It you could walk around under) seemed they were… hunting for of their host bush/tree, Bumelia something. That line from The lanuginosa (Michx.) Pers. Suddenly, Bard echoed again. I do not recall there under a board in the shade of now why I did not experiment the trees I discovered a male of H. with my three A. cribrosus. But illatus engaged in an unspeakable Editor Rich saved my bacon by (for a scarab) act. The beetle was doing an experiment himself. occupied with, and apparently eating the fresh remains of a Editor Rich, knowing of my lepidopterous larva of the smooth- interest, informed me of his skinned “cutworm” type, probably experimental results (pers. a noctuid. Only about 25% of the comms. 1987, updated 2007) larva remained when the beetle was concerning Archophileurus spotted with his wet head inside the cribrosus. On 29 August 1985, flank of the larva. I wondered, did he collected three specimens the beetle catch and kill the larva of A. cribrosus at: USA: Texas: itself, or did it find it already dead? Brewster Co., Highway 90, 1 mile Page 3 E of Alpine. A second label reads, over the ground. We might note “ex old cow dung 2 inches deep in two things in particular from these soil.” Also in the soil under the cow labels:1) The data on the Lampert pie he found scarabaeine larvae and Arnett/VanTassell labels serve he suspected were Onthophagus to illuminate the behavior of this gazella F. When he put several of enigmatic species, and 2) I for these larvae in a vial with soil and one am puzzled about the lack of an adult A. cribrosus, the larvae had pitfall and/or carrion trap records disappeared the next day, apparently for this species. eaten. It is likely significant that his three A. cribrosus were not just on Phileurus didymus Caught top of the soil under the dung pat, Doing It Too Just a week after as one would suspect if they were collecting the Archophileurus just seeking shelter: rather, they cribrosus specimens I had were down in the soil at the same another curious encounter with level as their possible prey, the another phileurine species. While scarabaeine larvae. running lights with Peter Jump 17 km southwest of Moctezuma, The only other previously recorded Sonora, Mexico, 944 m (3097 U.S.