Nidicole beetles

Community and Forum → Entomological collections → Nidicole beetles

Necrocephalus, 09.04.2007 22:51

The other day I found in a ravine an inhabited burrow of some rather large, judging by the diameter of the burrow, animal. I think that this is a fox hole - the one who lives there is clearly a predator (there are a lot of feathers of dead birds near the hole-apparently the owner had a snack), and apart from the fox in the middle zone, there seem to be no predators of suitable dimensions. Naturally, the idea came up to try to find out which coleoptera found shelter in this burrow, but I don't know how I can get these beetles out of there. At Yuferev's, I read something about bait wrapped in a rag, tied to a wire and pushed into a hole. But Genrikh Ivanovich himself, after a whole series of almost useless attempts to catch beetles by this method, concludes that it is not viable. He also set simple soil traps at the entrance to the burrows. To me, the latter method seems insufficiently productive - only those beetles that migrate to and from the burrow will be caught (if at all), and those that live in the burrow and are not going to climb out will remain untouched.
Then there was the Darrell - esque idea of smoking a fox out of a hole, then digging up the hole and carefully examining its contents.
I would be grateful for references to the literature on the study of mammalian burrows. Especially interested in the research methods, but the results too
Perhaps someone has already been fishing for nidicoles - in this case, please share your experience.

Comments

Pages: 1 2

Likes: 2

10.04.2007 15:05, stierlyz

In principle, apart from the above-mentioned excavations and soil traps, they didn't come up with anything else sensible. In residential burrows, their owners will throw out all sorts of baits and traps. It's another matter-it would be better to dig up the ENTIRE burrow and sift - sort through the litter in the nest or in the toilet, but how to implement this in practice? I have read many times about interesting beetles in molehills, and the mole has a shallow nest. But something I dug and dug, not a single nest was found, although in the gallery itself I came across a nidikolnaya Choleva. And in our region there are practically no moles, and the nests of ground squirrels and mole rats are oh so deep. In addition to the groups mentioned above, there is a recently described Limnastis (Carabidae) in burrows (at least in the Left-bank Ukraine). A new Aphodius was found and described during the excavation of mole rat passages in 1996, and we recently found out where the mysterious Onthophagus furciceps, better known as kindermanni, lives.

This post was edited by stierlyz - 04/10/2007 15: 47

Likes: 3

Likes: 2

Likes: 1

Likes: 2

10.04.2007 20:45, Necrocephalus

Thank you all for your tips!

2 The American: an interesting trap. I have already more or less thought out how to construct such a thing from improvised materials - a half-liter plastic bottle and a couple of meters of wire. Perhaps if you take a wire that is hard enough and fix it at the entrance to the burrow so that it cannot be pushed out with the trap, then it will stand in the burrow for enough time for beetles to crawl into it. There are blackthorn bushes right at the entrance to the hole , so you can tie a wire to them.

2 Omar: excuse me, but where does this data about the length of the fox hole come from? Could it really be tens of meters long? In this case, the idea of digging a hole is really not very successful...

I'll probably try setting up a frome Americana trap

first, and explore the ground at the beginning of the burrow, as KDG recommends. And then we'll see - it's possible that in the end I'll still take up the shovel

.
By the way, about mole dwellings - D. G. Wood in his book "Nests, burrows and dens" writes that you should look not in open spaces, but near bushes, trees and other natural masking objects. Moreover, these nests are located so close to the surface of the earth that an experienced eye is able to find them among the surrounding landscape by a characteristic elevation, like a small gentle hillock. It is possible that if you seriously mess up on this topic, then over time you can really learn to " see " the lairs of moles. And what riches there are...

This post was edited by Necrocephalus - 04/10/2007 20: 46

Likes: 1

11.04.2007 23:08, Aleksey Adamov

2 Adamov: I'm afraid that even if the burrow is only a dozen meters long, then it will not be enough for one person to dig it out, unless it is only in the trash to dig up this burrow, plus you also need to take soil samples along the way - you will not order the whole earth to be dismantled in a row? You'll have to sift through a couple of sacks of dirt that you usually put potatoes in, so you'll have to hire a team of diggers and a couple of girls who will patiently sift through the earth right there...

Hunters dig up in a couple of hours (if not in the trash). The task, probably, is to remove more of the "litter" located as far away from the exit as possible. Naturally, the whole burrow kolupat not why.

Likes: 4

Likes: 2

Likes: 1