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Scarab Taxonomy, Biology, and Identification Course
in Chanchamayo, Peru, January 2012

Brett C. Ratcliffe

From 10-20 January 2012, members of Team Scarab conducted a scarabaeoid identification workshop at the Gad Cha Kun Lodge between the towns of San Ramón and La Merced in the Province of Chanchamayo, District of Junin, Peru. We were invited to put together this course by Frank Azorsa, Director of the Centro de Ecología y Biodiversidad (CEBIO), a Peruvian non-governmental organization. Instructors for the course were Dr. Ronald Cave (Cetoniinae and Dynastinae), Dr. Mary Liz Jameson (Rutelinae, Orphninae), Dr. Federico Ocampo (Allidiostomatinae, Aclopinae, Scarabaeinae), Dr. Paul Skelley (Aphodiinae), Dr. Andrew Smith (Melolonthinae), and Dr. Brett Ratcliffe (Introduction, Dynastinae, and Cetoniinae).

The 28 “students” participating in the course represented ten countries and four continents and ranged in age from undergraduate student to retiree . . . but all were intensely interested in scarabs! How could one not be? Because instruction emphasized New World scarab diversity to a broad audience, instruction was given in both Spanish and English. Participants included Ana Caroli Hamel-Leigue (Bolivia), Jose Mondaca (Chile), Camila Plata (Colombia), Hector Gasca (Colombia), Jhon Neita (Colombia), Oliver Schlein (Honduras), Christian Ampudia and his wife Vanesa Estrella (both Peru), Alfredo Giraldo (Peru), Daniel Saavedra Albuquerque (Peru), Mario Gabriel Ibarra (Argentina), Miryam Damborsky (Argentina), Fernando Escobar (Mexico), Nicole Gunter (Australia), Beulah Garner (United Kingdom), and U.S. participants Amy Maile, Julianne Matczyszyn, Patricia Susman, Andy Matz, Kentaro Miwa, Bruce Noll, Dana Price, Paul Kaufman, Ronald McPeak, Sayde Ridling, Bethany Teeters, and Tim Christensen.

Many participants arrived in Lima on Sunday, 8 January, and some were able to visit the insect collections at the Natural History Museum of the National University of San Marcos the next day. Luis Alberto Figueroa is in charge of the Coleoptera collection and was an amiable host for the visitors. All of the course participants were then transported by bus from Lima to the Gad Cha Kun Lodge (820 meters elevation) on Tuesday, 10 January. The bus trip took about eight hours, and we had to cross an Andean pass at 15,416 feet elevation. Some of us had coca candy :) (courtesy of Mary Liz) to help with the altitude. We have no idea if the candy worked, but no one got altitude sickness. Our invaluable coordinator with CEBIO was Angelico Asenjo, a Peruvian graduate student, who was donating his time while on his “summer” break from his PhD program (Staphylinidae) at the Universidade de Parana in Brazil.

After arriving at the lodge in the late afternoon, everyone got checked into their quarters and oriented themselves to the facilities. We immediately got a light set up behind the round, open air structure that served as the dining area, laboratory, and classroom for our PowerPoint presentations. Very few insects came to the lights . . . an unfortunate pattern that repeated itself for nearly the entire trip. It seemed unusually dry (for being in the middle of the rainy season), and the adjoining secondary forest was merely a 4 km long patch in a narrow ravine bordering a stream behind the lodge. Brett Ratcliffe gave the introductory lecture on scarabs, collecting, preparation techniques, and curation the following morning (Wednesday). Afterwards, everyone split to the four winds to set up a variety of traps: light traps, banana traps, intercept traps, and pitfall traps. After lunch, Ron Cave covered Cetoniinae with concomitant lab time. And then, of course, everyone was checking out the light traps each night in a never ending frenzy of optimism and wishful thinking . . . as we all do when servicing light traps.

Brett Ratcliffe presented the overview of the subfamily Dynastinae on Thursday morning with the afternoon devoted to lab time identifying scarabs, using keys, and familiarization with the literature. Friday was devoted to collecting locally and to lab time, and Paul Kaufman gave a mini-workshop on insect photography. On Saturday, we all traveled for about an hour to Fundo Genova, a site just a few kilometers away that had better forest although with more limited access: a single, steep trail. Both day and night collecting was better at this locale. On Sunday, Federico Ocampo lectured on Scarabaeinae, Allidiostomatinae, and Aclopinae. On Monday, most of the group went on a return trip to Fundo Genova to collect. Andrew Smith lectured on scarab classification and Melolonthinae on Tuesday morning with collecting and lab time in the afternoon. Mary Liz Jameson reviewed the Rutelinae and Orphninae on Wednesday morning, and Bruce Noll read some of his insect poetry that evening to the enjoyment of the entire group; Bruce’s poems appear regularly in American Entomologist. Paul Skelley lectured on Aphodiinae and specialized collecting techniques on Thursday. That evening after dinner, we were surprised by being offered pisco sours, the national drink of Peru. Little did we know that this was just a softening up maneuver for what was to come. What came, after a dramatic, momentary turning off of all of the lights, was an indigenous indian dance troupe with musicians playing drums and flutes. They brought with them extra regalia that many course participants readily donned . . . after having been softened up by piscos. And then there was dancing to the drums and flutes with everyone having a great time.

Friday consisted of closing remarks, mini-awards for the most ardent collector (Ken Miwa, Nebraska) and the most devoted lab person (Miryam Damborsky, Argentina), formal certificates of attendance for all, and the presentation of framed scarab paintings to each of the instructors. Several groups went to La Merced for souvenirs or coffee; this part of Peru is the coffee capital of the country. On Saturday, our bus left for Lima at 8:30 AM, and we traversed the Andes again and arrived at the Lima airport at 4:30 PM. After fond farewells, many people gravitated to the terminal to catch flights home, others to the airport hotel for drinks and/or dinner, and still others to local hotels to spend a few more days touring in Lima.

The local arrangements provided by CEBIO were very good, the course was excellent, all of the participants were superb in their zeal and camaraderie, and the collecting was lousy. In total, the group collected 50 genera of scarabaeoids (some were singletons, others already dead) which, for one person, would be commendable for only ten days of effort. But for 33 people to collect only this many genera was a great disappointment. Some specimens were found dead, suggesting that the emergence had been 2-4 weeks earlier. The genera we collected were: PASSALIDAE: Passalus; HYBOSORIDAE: Anaides, Coilodes, Chaetodus, unidentified Ceratocanthini; GEOTRUPIDAE: Athyreus, Neoathyreus; APHODIINAE: Ataenius, Aphodius, Saprositellus, Iarupea, Lomonoxoides, Lomonoxia; SCARABAEINAE: Canthon, Scybalocanthon, Ontherus, Ateuchus, Uroxys, Deltochilum, Dichotomius, Canthidium, Onthophagus, Anomiopus, Eurysternus, Phanaeus, Coprophanaeus, Oxysternon; MELOLONTHINAE: Phyllophaga, Plectris, Ancistrosoma, Astaena, Blepharatoma; RUTELINAE: Pelidnota, Macraspis, Rutela, Lagochile, Platycoelia, Strigoderma, Anomala; DYNASTINAE: Cyclocephala, Stenocrates, Aspidolea, Brachysiderus, Megaceras, Hemiphileurus, Amblyoproctus; CETONIINAE: Euphoria, Gymnetis, Hoplopyga, Amithao.

Considerable interest was expressed by several people in having this course offered again, perhaps in another country in Latin America. All of the instructors are already thinking about how we might restructure the course to make it better in the event this happens.
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