These beetles were found inside a glass that used to be a candle. This glass was on the window ledge in an old adobe that has not been lived in for many years. It had been in there for as long as the current owners have owned it, which I believe is between 6 and 10 years, IIRC. None of the owners knew anything about how the beetles came to be there. They had been dead so long they were rotted out at both ends. Did someone scoop up the gravid mother beetle and leave her in the glass to lay eggs and perish? Did someone put soil with eggs in it inside the glass, perhaps to exterminate the candle? It's a mystery.

The mystery took a macabre turn. When I went outside to dump the glass, I noticed one of the beetles was a different color. It looked somehow fresher, maybe...alive....Then it moved. Then I saw another come clambering up over it's dead siblings. When I dumped the glass there was a third live one, way down at the bottom. How long had they been stuck in there? I've gleaned that Eleodes adults are known to live 5 years anyway. Maybe they can live even longer? This glass was probably there more than 5 years. Maybe many more. Creepy, huh?

I half-heartedly tried to key some of the deceased to species using a key for Texas Eleodes, but as I have no Eleodes reference specimens I was not able to convince myself what species they are. I let the living ones go free. I'm sure they deserved it after apparently living years in a glass of dead beetles.

Does anyone have a better guess as to what happened here? Your guess is as good, or maybe better than mine.