Another cool beetle 🪲

[happypalms]

This guy I found crawling along minding his own business until I spotted him I don’t like to think what the grub destroyed most likely some rare and exotic palm roots 

[fiji jim]

kill it

[tropicbreeze]

Don't take any notice of people who have no idea of what they're talking about and go hysterical shrieking "Kill it" to everything. There are something like a couple hundred species of "rhinoceros" beetles in Australia, and a lot more elsewhere. This one is a female East Australian Rhinoceros Beetle, Xylotrupes australicus ssp. australicus. The larvae spend a couple of years feeding on decaying wood and mulch. The adults live only a month or so, their only job being to produce the next generation and then go to the "big beetlarium in the sky".

The males have massive horns (relatively speaking) and look quite impressive. You'll know it when you see one. Females don't have any horns. Here we have the other subspecies Xylotrupes australicus ssp darwinia which looks quite similar.

[mnorell]

3 hours ago, tropicbreeze said:

Don't take any notice of people who have no idea of what they're talking about and go hysterical shrieking "Kill it" to everything. There are something like a couple hundred species of "rhinoceros" beetles in Australia, and a lot more elsewhere. This one is a female East Australian Rhinoceros Beetle, Xylotrupes australicus ssp. australicus. The larvae spend a couple of years feeding on decaying wood and mulch. The adults live only a month or so, their only job being to produce the next generation and then go to the "big beetlarium in the sky".

The males have massive horns (relatively speaking) and look quite impressive. You'll know it when you see one. Females don't have any horns. Here we have the other subspecies Xylotrupes australicus ssp darwinia which looks quite similar.

Thank you, Zig, for the I.D...and shame on the O.P. (and his cheering section) in killing this poor animal, guilty of nothing other than living its life as a detritivore, part of the natural ecosystem. It is a sad situation that for some, ignorance is bliss; and senseless, reactionary violence their answer to such an encounter.

[happypalms]

Then this must be the male I never spray my garden let the balance of mother nature take care of any in balance for a reason the seasons bring all sorts of plague proportions of insects for reasons it may coincide with a certain breeding season of another species of animal a lot of people are aware of this balance some more than others thanks zig 

[BeyondTheGarden]

My favorite class of all time, was a voluntary class in Junior High summer school, called Field Biology.  We sampled stream water, used a dichotomous key to identify trees, collected and preserved leaves and insects.  I don't know how many different species of beetle we collected, but it was there that I learned to appreciate biodiversity.  The most coveted species of all was the Stag Beetle.  The insect world is wild. 

[tropicbreeze]

On 2/1/2024 at 6:02 PM, happypalms said:

Then this must be the male I never spray my garden let the balance of mother nature take care of any in balance for a reason the seasons bring all sorts of plague proportions of insects for reasons it may coincide with a certain breeding season of another species of animal a lot of people are aware of this balance some more than others thanks zig 

 

Yes, that's the male. I've seen them for sale online for around $150. That's a lot for something you might only have for a couple of months.

 

7 hours ago, BeyondTheGarden said:

My favorite class of all time, was a voluntary class in Junior High summer school, called Field Biology.  We sampled stream water, used a dichotomous key to identify trees, collected and preserved leaves and insects.  I don't know how many different species of beetle we collected, but it was there that I learned to appreciate biodiversity.  The most coveted species of all was the Stag Beetle.  The insect world is wild. 

There's well over 300,000 species of beetle in the world. As a group they comprise nearly a third of all animal species on the planet. And there's quite an impressive array of Stag Beetles.

[happypalms]

1 hour ago, tropicbreeze said:

Yes, that's the male. I've seen them for sale online for around $150. That's a lot for something you might only have for a couple of months.

 

There's well over 300,000 species of beetle in the world. As a group they comprise nearly a third of all animal species on the planet. And there's quite an impressive array of Stag Beetles.

For sale for $150 that’s incredible