A Roaming Bolitotherus
In April, I completed a months-long study of the relationship between an unusual tenebrionid beetle, Bolitotherus cornutus, and the reishi mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum. As part of that study, I had to collect large numbers of both the fungus and the very reclusive, generally sedentary insect. Finding the beetles was hard work, and it took months of hunting to gather the number of specimens required to generate statistically useful data for the experiments I conducted.
I was thus surprised to just now find a large male with particularly prominent horns crawling up my screen door. In months of hunting these insects, I never found them apart from the fruiting bodies and mycelia of the persistent polypores that they consume. I'm not sure how it got there, but it seems more likely that it flew than that it walked such a long distance, though the insects very rarely fly. I've never seen one do it myself.
LL suggests that it came to say goodbye. Personally, I think it heard that I was looking for subjects and it took all this time to get here. Either way, it's very odd to find one simply roaming about like this.
I do hope to continue my studies of the beetle-fungus relationship when I start my program in Massachusetts. Maybe the beetle was hoping to hitch a ride north!
