Sure, Dvoribird. Ask away, not that I'm an expert!

I'm obviously not an entomologist. :)
I just brought three home (Austin) and put them in a butterfly cage on a 4-inch pot of native morning glory that I had grown from seed.
(They are next to a 4-inch pot of Turk's Cap since I initially found them hiding in Turk's Cap leaves near morning glory in a public park. There are also three adult Acanalonia in the cage, which I don't think will bother them. There's a butterfly sponge, as well, to nectar on, for the hoppers.)
This morning I saw two of the beetles mating!
Questions:
1. What does "Deloyala" mean or where does the name come from?
2. Are they sexually dimorphic?
3. Do they lay eggs directly on their host plant? On the underside of leaves?
4. Do they pupate directly on the host plant?
5. What else do they need to thrive? My plant is small (but leafy enough) and not flowering - do they need flowers? Soil substrate? Anything I am missing? I don't know what I'm doing.

Keep in mind this individual is the only tortoise beetle I've ever reared, and it's been a long time! But I'll do my best to answer:

1. I wonder the same thing
2. I don't know
3. I don't know. lol, I'm not much help so far.
4. Ah, this one I can answer. The one I reared did indeed pupate on the host plant.
5. Mine fed on both leaves and flower petals, but I don't know whether both are necessary. I didn't use any soil or other substrate. I think I just had the roots of the vine in water, in a water pick. I don't think I even had a cage at that time, so I kept a pretty close eye on it, but I don't think it ever tried to wander. I probably replaced the vine whenever the larva had eaten most of the leaves or leaves and buds.

Good luck! :)

Your series of images really helps. I am grateful to folks who rear creatures and document their findings for the rest of us, so thank you!

You said you had the roots of the vine in water - did you pull up a rooted vine? I am curious as to how you were able to keep the blossoms going. I do much better raising bugs than raising plants, I'm afraid.

My adults fly, but I don't know how far or how well or if they migrate or pretty much stay put where they are. I get the sense that these beetles are hyperlocalised: I had only seen this beetle a single time before and had no idea what it was:


I am concerned about their flying out of the cage when I open it, but haven't had any issues so far. The cage is 36" tall x 24" wide so that I can try to keep them in the back of the cage for safer opening (to water the plants and to take roll). I hope to observe the life cycle.

If I am able to learn anything, I will certainly post. (One thing I learned this season was not to put Acanalonia nymphs in a cage with Photinus, so no life cycle images there ...)

I will try to find some morning glory blossoms for them if I can figure out how to take cuttings and keep them fresh.

The vines I used were short, only a couple feet long at most. I don't remember how long the blossoms lasted. I may have focused more on keeping the foliage fresh. I'm glad my photos are helpful and wish you luck in rearing. Feel free to comment here or email me directly if you have any other questions.

I did pull the vine up by the roots. I also didn't have to deal with adult, winged beetles; I found the larva as a larva in the wild and took it home and reared it with morning glory from my yard.

Just jumping in to say thank you for these photos and for documenting this crazy cool process. I found my first tortoise beetle the other day and they are pretty fascinating creatures.

I appreciate this life cycle series that John Schneider posted.
Since first commenting on these images, I have since raised multiple generations of these guys and now have the answers to my questions as well as success in growing new host plants from seed.
I will be writing an article in the Rearing forum in a few weeks once I get all of my photographs processed (I'm several months behind ...).
They are quite easy to raise (*too* easy, in fact - I had to release most of them because I got so, so many!).
I agree with you that these are beautiful and fascinating creatures, and they've been a joy to raise.
Thank you to John Schneider for the inspiration and encouragement. :)

... for the kind comments, dvoribird and Christine. This year I've gotten back into rearing and am really enjoying it. I'm also really impressed with dvoribird's articles and their pics and detail.

Looking forward to when I have some time to savor the posts. Thanks for the links, dvoribird!

I will be looking forward to that article! If you think of it, please post a comment here when it is ready.

In the meantime, here are my current articles on rearing other creatures, with more coming once I process the related photographs.
• Raising Gryllus texensis
• Raising Oecanthinae
• Raising and Overwintering Labidomera clivicollis
• Raising Oncopeltus fasciatus
• Raising Argidae (sawfly) from larvae to release