On this, my first anniversary date on bugguide, I am pleased to relate the rest of the story about my harvest of Osmoderma larvae from a windfall Maple tree.

Colected as grub February 16, 2006. (Click on handful-of-grubs photo below to see story.) I decided to break one of the pupal shells open in my Osmoderma rearing container, revealing this pupa. Mites had gotten inside the pupal shell and were clustered on the pupa. I brushed some off with a small watercolor paitnbrush prior to these photos, but I got the not-too-bright idea to blast the little buggers off with compressed (canned) air, which I often direct at firmly-held adult beetles to clean them up or dry them off before a photo shoot. (If you don't hold onto the beetle, it will be blasted across the room.)

This proved at once to have been a terrible idea as the intense air stream ripped the left elytron away from the developing wing, and both ended up defunct as the beetle matured (see pix).