Mystery Revelaed

OK – a few apologies for not having full images *yet* of the larvae in question (I will in a few days!).  Over the weekend I was out with a group of Berkeley students on Mount Hamilton and PhD candidate Meghan Culpepper collected a few species of Scaphinotus and a some larvae!  So the specimen from Monday was indeed the larvae of a Scaphinotus beetle feasting inside the shell of a native terrestrial snail.  This challenge was a hard one since these predatory Scaphinotus larvae are rarely encountered and there are zero images of out there – and none of them feeding.  Better luck next time!

For now, here is an undetermined Scaphinotus species.  In the coming weeks I will have 4-5 species photographed and identified (by Meghan) – and the larvae will have to be sequenced for species ID.  Stay tuned.

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