Monday 15 July 2024

Female Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle

Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus ssp. dichotomus, 双叉犀金龟). Female.

This afternoon Yuelu mountain was hot, breezeless and dry and activity clustered around its few still trickling streams. Where there was water there were birds, including both a mother and fledging Amur paradise flycatchers. There were also many flies and moths (I left them undisturbed) and at one stream, a large solitary beetle, climbing along the wet rocks. The female rhinoceros beetle lacks the male's cephalic horn, and she was also missing one leg, though that did not greatly reduce her mobility; insects are often battered in the wild, but often seem more so in the dry season of summer.

Female Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle on Yuelu Mountain