The first species to receive this honor is the prominent, large, and widespread stink beetle, Eleodes obscura. It has been the subject of field surveys, respirometry experiments, and longevity studies here at the lab, and may be the most studied species of Eleodes.

Expect more pages to become active with time. Hopefully, this will become a resource that many people in the community can make use of.

Five eggs will be a pretty good brood if they all hatch and survive. For the next few weeks, she will be tending them, with the first egg expected to hatch about April 22.

For several years, our neighbor Terry has been recording and posting footage from his camera inside a next box occupied by a pair of western screech owls. He has always had a strong following on Facebook, but for those of us who do not use the platform, he has offered to make the information and videos available here on the Lab web site.

Once again, they have prepped the nest box and have started to lay eggs. The first video clips have been uploaded to Terry’s Owl Cam page, along with his comments and a spreadsheet of data regarding previous broods.

New videos and commentary will be uploaded regularly, so stay tuned for plenty of drama and excitement. There are two eggs now, with more to come, and then it will be about another month before they hatch. Once the eggs hatch, there will be a festival of cuteness as the little fuzzballs eat and grow for roughly another month before they fledge.

Inspired by comments from my friend and colleague Dr. Drew Talley, and conversations with a local Master Gardener, we set up a small array of pitfall traps to collect and record beetles over the course of the year.

It is a 3 X 3 grid, so nine traps total, spaced 3 meters apart. We set out flags to mark the locations of the traps in a section of the back acre of the lab where foot traffic was minimal.

The traps are plastic party cups, buried to the rim. The soil is quite loose, so placing the traps was easy.

Once the traps were in place, we put plywood covers over them to keep debris out and shield any animals that fall in.

The covers are 6″ X 6″ pieces of plywood, each with three legs made from 3/4″ dowels. The 3″ legs allow them to be partially buried for stability. Once screwed together they were given a few coats of latex paint to protect them from the elements.

We’ll set traps for the first week of each month, for five nights at a time.

I have not seen beetles in the neighborhood before April, so it is unlikely any will fall into the traps this month. Knowing when beetles are not active provides an important baseline for when they first appear.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, my motto is “never let the good be the enemy of the adequate.” The site is up and running, if nowhere near perfect.

The Front Page is ready, and provides jumping off points for the major sections of the site.

There is a Wildlife page, which will ultimately direct visitors to informal discussions of local flora and fauna. At the moment, one can find information about some of the local Beetles.

The Projects page describes the work that we are doing here. The page describing the Beetle Metabolism and Ecology project has been published, along with information about Respirometry. Pages describing the other projects are coming soon.

The Blog continues, with this entry being the most current.

Finally, we have added a collection of Quick Links to the Front Page, allowing visitors to jump to their areas of interest without having to navigate multiple pages.

Thank you for joining us on this journey of discovery. More pages will be going live, including links to resources and descriptions of the work we are doing.

I got a shipment of 15 blue death-feigning beetles (Asbolus verrucosus) yesterday from Bugs in Cyberspace. If the goal of the lab is to study the biology of the local wildlife of the semi-arid savannah, why would I be interested in Asbolus, a creature from the hot, dry Sonoran and Mojave deserts? Well, aside from them being cute, lumpy, blueish, and acting like they are dead (see below), their biology is worth a look. Compared to the local species of Eleodes and Philolithus, Asbolus is adapted to much more extreme conditions, with scarce resources and high temperatures. One reported adaptation for these difficult conditions is a much lower metabolic rate than those I have measured for Eleodes and Philolithus. However, the experiments were done long ago and under different conditions. When I saw that these guys were available online, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to revisit their oxygen consumption and temperature sensitivity.

Tenebrionid beetles, like Eleodes, Philolithus, and Asbolus, employ thanatosis, or playing dead, as a defensive strategy. With Eleodes and Philolithus, I am accustomed to them freezing for a while during handling, but it is not particularly convincing. Most of the time they try to wiggle away rather than playing dead.

Asbolus, on the other hand, lives up to its name of death-feigning beetle, and fakes its own death at every opportunity. Whenever they are handled, they turn over and stick their legs out like cartoon characters, and will do so repeatedly. This may be their only choice. They have no defensive stink glands (like Eleodes), nor do they mimic a stinky species (as Philolithus mimics Eleodes), so playing dead may be the most effective strategy.

They will need to settle in for a few weeks before experiments get started, and the real test will be in the summer when all of the local beetles have their metabolisms at full throttle.