Subject: who is he little monster
Geographic location of the bug: Araraquara-São Paulo, Brazil
Date: 08/19/2019
Time: 09:51 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hi, I would like to identify these beetles, they were very big sizes about 10+ centimeters. People here are afraid of them and call them “big cockroach”.
Nearby there are eucalyptus trees and lots of sugar cane.
I would like to know if they are rare, because these photos are from November 2018 and since then I have not seen any more here (the first beetle is slightly smaller than the second).
The first question is: are they dangerous?
What is his life time? what does he feed on? and how is his larval state?
How you want your letter signed: Kainã
Dear Kainã,
This is one of the Root Borers in the subfamily Prioninae, and it looks similar to Ctenoscelis ater which is pictured on Coleoptera Neotropical, but there is no information on the site regarding this beetle’s life cycle. There is an image but no information on Prioninae of the World. There is one sighting on iNaturalist.
It seems to me that here in São Paulo, the only option is C. acanthopus:
https://apps2.cdfa.ca.gov/publicApps/plant/bycidDB/wdetails.asp?id=286&w=n
Thanks for the correction Cesar.
Hi, I don’t remember what the identification was before but maybe it’s not the one pointed out by Cesar.
Last year I noticed that the amount drastically decreased from 2019 and 2020. And this year I haven’t seen any yet.
I live in a condominium, and here a lot of grass was planted (which came from another state in Brazil), and I came to the conclusion that these are not from São Paulo.
At night I saw the huge larvae in the grass and in the morning only the big holes.
The owls(cunicularia) wiped them all out apparently.
Happy New Year!!
Oi Cesar, não consegui abrir esse link sobre o que seria? Eu gostaria de saber mais sobre essa espécie..
Hoje 27/10 vi um bem parecido novamente, quase 1 ano depois desses da foto
It seems to me that here in São Paulo, the only option is C. acanthopus:
https://apps2.cdfa.ca.gov/publicApps/plant/bycidDB/wdetails.asp?id=286&w=n
Oi Cesar, não consegui abrir esse link sobre o que seria? Eu gostaria de saber mais sobre essa espécie..
Hoje 27/10 vi um bem parecido novamente, quase 1 ano depois desses da foto