Passalid Social Behavior

Like many wood-living insects (Hamilton 1978), passalids exhibit a high level of sociality (Schuster and Schuster 1985) —the highest known in Coleoptera (Brandmayr 1992). Not only do both parents invest a lot of time caring for young, but adult siblings will help care for pupal cases from later clutches as well (Schuster and Schuster 1985, Valenzuelagonzalez 1993). Their bright red color makes teneral (immature) adults easy to distinguish from mature adults, who are black. Tenerals require a few weeks to many months to attain adult coloration (Schuster and Schuster 1985), and first reproduce 4-10 months after pupal ecdysis (Schuster 1975b).

Teneral adults help care for their younger siblings