Nutrition of Attagenus (?) Sp. II. (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) Purchased

In a preceding paper (Moore, 1943), I described a partly synthetic ration which supported slow growth of Attagenus larvae. Work on the nutrition of the yellow species (Moore and Moore, 1942) has been continued, the insects being handled approximately as already described. About 0.5 gm. of food and twenty newly-hatched larvae were placed in each 2-dram vial. The incubator temperature has been raised from 87° to 90° F. to accelerate growth and, in the more recent work, the humidity has been reduced to 55% to prevent deliquescence of certain amino acid mixtures and to minimize the growth of molds and other unwanted organisms.