Hercules beetle lifecycle

You have beetles and you have BEETLES. The Hercules Beetle is definately of the latter kind. The Hercules beetle Dynastes hercules hercules is a species of beetle from is a large native to the rainforests of South America, Central America, and the Lesser Antilles. The species is part of the rhinoceros beetle species. The males grow a huge horn on their head, which is used to fight other males. Females lack their horn, making them appear much smaller. Male Hercules beetles can grown up to 17,5 cm in length including their horn. That makes them definately a BEETLE.

To be able to be this big as an adult beetle, the beetle larva (grub) has to get huge as well. It starts as a tiny egg and hatches into a tiny grub. But then it eats and eats, for one to two years. It lives inside rotting logs and feeds of the rotting wood. The grub can get up to 100 grams in weight. After it is done eating it will mold into a pupa. This life stage hardly moves and stays in the log until the pupa has developed into an adult beetle (imago). It then emerges from the pupa and comes out of the log. It will live for a couple of months. When adult a Hercules beetle eats fruits and in captivity it can also be fed with beetle jelly and other food sublements.

Hercules beetles are being kept as pets by insect ethousiasts. I never had one, but more patient people have reared them succesfully from egg to grub, pupa and finally adult beetle. The following video shows the entire list of stages. I’m especially impressed with the huge grub and the moving pupa!

I’m happy to see that quite a few people are able to breed beetles succesfully. One female can produce around 100 eggs, making one succesful breeder a huge supplier of new grubs and beetles. This allows insect enthousiast to purchase a captive bred larva or beetle, sparing the ones in nature. Rearing beetles can give us fascinating new insights in the life of beetles and will motivate us more to preserve their habitat.

Pretty in Pink – Meet the Orchid Mantis

hymenopuscoronatusThe orchid mantis is one of the most amazing praying mantis species in the world. It is amazing because of it’s bright pink and white colors. You would think that an insect does not want to stand out – you know, danger of being eaten by a bird, chameleon or other insect-eating animal. Dressing in bright pink might not be the best choice then. But as soon as you see it, you will realise that this praying mantis has another plan… it mimics a flower making it perfectly camouflaged for anything that is not looking for a flower to eat. Next to the colors the body shap is made just like a flower. The legs have big round petal-like shapes on them, the body has a little green stripe making the body outline looking less like a bug. The mantis keeps her arms tucked in, helping to keep the non-insect look. Animals that are looking for a tasty bug will not look too closely at flowers. And little insects looking for a flower? They will be eaten by the praying mantis.

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Pink and white praying mantis

The females of the orchid mantis are the pretty ones. The males are small and lack color, but the females are big, bright pink with white and their legs look like flower petals.

Click on a picture to see it enlarged.

Meet the Wandering Violin

Ever heard of the Wandering Violin mantis? It’s a mantis species that has a bizarre body. It has a normal head and abdomen, but in between there is a huge stretch of body that only serves as camouflage. It breaks up the normal body shape of an insect, making it harder for predators to recognize this mantis as a tasty bite. The rest of the body is also very well camouflaged.

Check out more about the Wandering Violin Mantis on it’s own page.

Subadult male Wandering Violin Mantis

Subadult male Wandering Violin Mantis

Wandering Violin subadult Male

Wandering Violin subadult Male

Hickory horned devil

I got a message from a visitor of this website asking if I know what could be up with this caterpillar he found. He attached some pictures, and I couldn’t believe my eyes! I had never seen such a creature! He mentioned it was a Hickory horned devil caterpillar. Check it out:

Hickory Horned Devil – picture by Blaine Booher

Hickory Horned Devil caterpillar on the street – picture by Blaine Booher

It’s the largest caterpillar species in North America, growing to about 6 inches. Right now they are leaving their trees to dig a hole in the ground where they will pupate. As a pupa they will survive the winter to emerge as a regal moth next spring. Hickory horned devils are greenish blue in color with large orange spikes near their head and smaller black spikes all over their body. When they are born they are completely black but already have their spikes. They are completely harmless to humans.

The Hickory horned devil is more beautiful on this -a bit dated- video:

Reader’s question: What is THIS?

I got a question from Marianne Brouwer from the Netherlands: “I took a picture of this enormous bug in the Andes mountians in Equador. It was around 12 cm long. Do you know what it is?”

Amazonian Giant Lacewing

Amazonian Giant Lacewing

It took some research, but this monstrosity is an Amazonian Giant Lacewing. As the name suggests, it is a species in the family of lacewings (Chrysopidae), order Neuroptera. It occurs all over the Amazonian rain forest and feeds of bugs and their eggs.