Hunting Coprophanaeus lancifer

Is it true they fly to carrion, rather than poop?

Many years ago I some became the owner of a BA beetle. It was/is a Coprophanaeus lancifer. Even dead and dried out I weighs a little over 5 ounces.

I keep it in a box of "whow" bugs.

When I was 13/14, a missionary from our church served in Brazil. He brought me several large beetle grubs/larvae. They were the size of hot dogs. My Dad got a 30 gallon drum and a dead rotten tree stump. Leaves and sticks went in first followed by the rotting stump. My Dad got a piece of plate glass to cover the barrel. A small lamp was placed inside the barrel at the very top.

My bug room with my collection was in the basement. It was just before Thanksgiving and I was spreading butterflies when I heard this scratching, when I went to investigate, there was this huge beetle at the top of the barrel wanting out. I could not believe the power of the beetle. He/she could almost lift the plate glass over the of the drum.

My high school biology teacher was dumbfounded by the size and power of the Beetles.

I did not have a killing jar big enough to put the in. I finally put then in a small wooden cigar box and into the freezer.

I pinned and mounted them and I kept them in a drawer with some other "WOW" bugs.In the late 1980 I took them to a Lepidopterests meeting as a show and tell. I traded them for several hundred specimens of western Speyeria and a large assortment of Checker Spots.

That is about as close as I ever came to being a Coleopterists.

I still stick pins in Beetles from my traps. I also stick pins in Diptera, hymenoptera and Vespidae, or just about any large ugly bug. Unfortunately, I have so called friends who collect them.