Nathant's Ellychnia corrusca (Winter Firefly) Journal

I caught 3 of these that were all on hardwood trees. I have no idea what I should do with them and how to care for them But I will try to collect some tree bark for nesting. Creating their setup soon and also planning on catching more. I hope they are not all the same gender so they can breed. Pics coming soon.

I can imagine doing something like this would be fairly difficult to do. However, here is what I would do based off what I know about them.

Put the adults in a jar, with moist soil on the bottom. Putting some moss on the bottom would help make it more natural and help maintain moisture. I am not sure on the adults, but if you do end up getting larvae from them, they eat mealworms, and earth worms. However I recommend you chop them up. They stay in larvae stage for 3 months, so be prepared.

T.C. wrote:I can imagine doing something like this would be fairly difficult to do. However, here is what I would do based off what I know about them.

Put the adults in a jar, with moist soil on the bottom. Putting some moss on the bottom would help make it more natural and help maintain moisture. I am not sure on the adults, but if you do end up getting larvae from them, they eat mealworms, and earth worms. However I recommend you chop them up. They stay in larvae stage for 3 months, so be prepared.

Thanks for the info.

I did some reading not on this species but on keeping fireflies in general; The adults barely eat, and the larvae eat a lot (Like all larvae do) The larvae are predatory on inscets and the adults like sweets (tree sap, etc) I am planning a setup with coconut fiber and perhaps provide water sources in the form of fruits and vegetables like I do with my Tenebrio molitor colony.

So I learned a few things about this species in particular. The larvae are easy to keep, but not the beetles. Tough to breed apparently. Feeding sugar water is good for the adults and earthworms or soft bodied prey are fine for the larvae. These are actually diurnal and the adults don't glow. That means more to see for me!

I have reared these native non-bio luminescent fireflies using those tiny snails as food. I've never actually seen glowing ones

1 one of them has died

I have finally made the setup for them; Couldn't get any pics becuase these guys are really good climbers so they were stalking the top, but it is really simple: A tiny tupperware container filled with coconut fiber.

Canadian anter wrote:I have reared these native non-bio luminescent fireflies using those tiny snails as food. I've never actually seen glowing ones

Oh yeah, forgot about those, I never tried feeding mine snails, since there aren't many where I live, but yeah many firefly larvae enjoy eating snails, so if you can find some @Nathant then you should try feeding some to your larvae if you get some! BTW, I have tried slugs, they never seemed interested.

Nathant wrote:1 one of them has died

I have finally made the setup for them; Couldn't get any pics becuase these guys are really good climbers so they were stalking the top, but it is really simple: A tiny tupperware container filled with coconut fiber.

Sorry to hear that, they are pretty short lived though so that may be normal.

Cool, hope they do well for you, keep us updated!

These have strangely died a few weeks ago.

I am stilll finding them on trees so it won't be hard to collect more. Soon!