Abstract

Females of the Australian dynastine beetle Haploscapanes barbarossa (Fabricius, 1775) excavate burrows and provision them with food for young larvae. Larvae consume that food, but not enough is provided for the larva to complete development. In northern Queensland, some of the partially developed larvae move to adjacent burrows of the cockroach Macropanesthia rhinoceros Saussure, 1895, where they feed on the considerable organic material, including leaf material and cockroach frass, that builds up in these chambers up to 1 m below the surface. In other areas of northern Australia, there are no burrowing cockroaches, so the larvae must find other food sources after the early stages.

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