Back to Freedom

Last fall, at the very first signs of cold, not so long after the late flowers and fruits were gone, we met with two little green jewels of the European Rose Chafer, Cetonia aurata. Hard times were expected, so we brought them to their new home (ours). They spent wintertime as a long lasting fest, feeding on apples and pollen pellets.

Now that spring is back (actually, now that I’ve seen some of their kind flying by), it was time for them to leave… We set both free. They stayed a few minutes on the new leaves and decided to go their way. Back to freedom.

As far as I know, adults are not naturally surviving wintertime. They don’t seem to overwinter. Or at least, I wasn’t able to find anything about this. They emerge at Spring, feed and mate, and probably starve at fall. Larvae that undergo metamorphosis by the end of Summer, usually after three years as grubs and ground amateurs, but they keep resting deep into the ground within their pupation nest until time warms up again. But it happens that some individuals happen to emerge at fall instead of coming out at Spring.

I really would like to know if those risk-prone individuals naturally find their way through frost and snow (do they go back into the ground?) or if they just don’t do it. All we know is that adults ready to emerge survive winter quite well as long as they stay into the ground, so those that emerge mistakenly during fall could do it were they to find a right place to stay (cold thus seems okay as long as you’re protected and quiet). But do fall erratic beetles do it back? That’s the question…

We don’t know if our two winter pets were emerged last fall or if they were already one season old adults. In the latter case, the ‘experiment’ means that Rose Chafer can live longer then a season as adults and that feeding is the main reason for their death. But ours are fate escapees for now anyway…