Rain Beetles

Subject: Pleocoma blaisdelli -males
Location: Don Pedro Reservoir , Tuolomne County, California, US
November 5, 2015 10:53 am
I headed down to 49 and Don Pedro Reservoir 11/3/2015 ( during our first heavy soaker rains ) and set out a couple of my home made Plexiglas vein Black lite bucket traps just off a dirt road and waited . 56 degrees Rain. Finally the lord sent down more rain and at 5:00 am to 6:10 am a very nice series of males newly hatched , very sharp horned , and scratch free ! Very Shiny black elytra covers and golden brown Fur ! I believe these ” Rain Beetles ” to be males of ” Pleocoma blaisdelli Linsley 1938 ” , due to locality association , number of antennae segments, and Physical Description . The males lengths were exactly ( on metal calipers ) 20 mm to 28 mm long. 7 lamillie segments . I did not find or locate any females or their burrows .
… Gene St. Denis , Sierra Nevada Research , South Lake Tahoe , California
Signature: Gene St. Denis

Dear Gene,
We are positively thrilled to post your images of this Rain Beetle emergence.  From your information, it sounds like you went out on a Rain Beetle safari, and that you were quite successful.  The life history of Rain Beetles in the genus Pleocoma is quite fascinating, and we often marvel at the intricate complexity of the lives of certain insects, and we can’t help but to wonder how the immobility of the female Rain Beetle, who lives deep underground, enables the species to survive, but that also leads to the diversity in the genus and the location specificity of the different species.