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American Carrion Beetle (Necrophila americana)
Photo#1670977
Copyright © 2019
Jim Moore1
beetle larva species? -
Necrophila americana
sideling Hill, Washington County, Maryland, USA
June 1, 2019
Size: 3 centimeters?
Deciduous forest near field and river; moving fast.
Images of this individual:
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Contributed by
Jim Moore1
on 5 June, 2019 - 2:11am
Last updated 24 May, 2021 - 4:25pm
Moved
Moved from
Carrion Beetles
.
Spent a bunch of time looking at other images and reading what bits and pieces I could find and I'd say Jim had it right. I think it's the angle that the larva is sitting at is what makes it seem odd and that's what was throwing me off. There aren't a lot of species options that I can tell for Maryland, and this seems to be the most likely suspect. Worst comes to worst this can be moved to the "Unidentified larvae" section of Silphidae.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 24 May, 2021 - 4:25pm
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Moved
Moved from
American Carrion Beetle
.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:02am
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Are we sure?!?
Howdy, being from Europe I know next to nothing about the larvae of American Silphinae, but just looked into these a bit to help with some other ID and stumbled on this one.
To me, this looks a lot more like some Silpha, or in the US a Heterosilpha. From what I've found about Necrophila americana it would seem that the larvae of that species have a shorter/wider habitus and that the pseudoepimera are pulled out into a point more than is the case here ...
Maybe someone more knowledgable about the larvae of American Silphinae should have a second look?
Cheers,
Arp
…
Arp
, 23 May, 2021 - 11:55pm
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Good points
Moved it up to the family level for some extra looks. I think you're correct on the ID.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:04am
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.
Just wanted to note that BugGuide has no records of Heterosilpha east of the Mississippi river.
…
Jim Moore1
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:08am
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Just checked GBIF too
Only 1 record west of the Mississippi River. Seems unlikely to be
Heterosilpha
then.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:20am
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Okay, valid counter point
Frankly, I hadn't looked at the distribution much, just thought I drop a quick note, so good of you to check that.
My point being that it looks too slender for what my brief new understanding of Nicrophila is, still makes me weary. In Europe I would seriously look at the likes of Silpha carinata, Phosphuga atrata, Ablattaria or maybe even Aclypea for this habitus. The latter being a bit more hairy, but hard to discern on this image.
Any chance of larger crops of antennae, pseudoepimera (little wings on the dorsal plates) and urogomphi (tail appendages)?
P.S. Okay, this is going to be hard to hold up:
Both
Aclypea
seem to be western or even only north-western and it would not be my first choice for complete habitus anyway.
The antennae (from what I can recognize) are to short for a true
Silpha
(apart from the all black colour not matching
Silpha tristis
). Also too short for
Phosphuga
or
Ablattaria
if it were to turn up in the US.
It's certainly no
Thanatophilus
or
Necrodes
It doesn't match any info I could find about American
Oiceoptoma
(nor our European species), but I may be missing a species?
Habitus seems to be a really nice fit for
Heterosilpha
, but as you pointed out that would be unlikely distribution wise...
So if all that is diagnostically sound(?), my newly acquired understanding of the larvae of Necrophila is probably just wrong or incomplete?!? At 3cm (okay, give or take) it should be an L3 ready to pupate soon and I would really expect it to be wider...
Could there be sexual dimorphism in the larvae of Nicrophila?
Sorry for all the confusion! Will try to find more literature on these larvae, but it'll take some time before I can visit the library in Leiden.
…
Arp
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:37am
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.
I have added the two other shots I have, plus some closer crops. Unfortunately, these are very high ISO shots (6400), so closer crops may not help much.
…
Jim Moore1
, 24 May, 2021 - 10:38am
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Thanks!
Hi Jim,
excellent - thanks for all the extra images. Bit pressed for time now, but will have a closer look asap :o)
…
Arp
, 24 May, 2021 - 11:15am
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Moved
Moved from
Beetles
.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 5 June, 2019 - 2:17pm
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Carrion beetle?
It looks very similar to a photo in the Kaufman guide of carrion beetle (Necrophila americana) larva. But there was no carrion in the vicinity that I was aware of.
…
Jim Moore1
, 5 June, 2019 - 8:55am
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Could be
It may have finished eating and was looking for a place to hunker down and pupate. Though that could be the case no matter what the family was.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 5 June, 2019 - 8:57am
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larva
Larva of other members of the genus in the area don't look like this, so I think it has to be. Comment under one BugGuide photo of a very similar creature says they kept it in captivity, and it did indeed mature into N. americana.
…
Jim Moore1
, 5 June, 2019 - 1:34pm
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.
Not sure if this is the photo I was referring to above, but here is one is said to have grown up into N. americana
https://bugguide.net/node/view/3853/bgimage
…
Jim Moore1
, 24 May, 2021 - 9:30am
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Moved
Moved from
ID Request
.
…
Tyler Hedlund
, 5 June, 2019 - 8:45am
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