This morning a large beetle lay on it’s back, squirming and wiggling, on our patio tiles. Both dogs sniffed it and walked away, apparently this fellow wasn’t caninely tasty.

So I collected the substantial bug and put it on our glass-topped patio table, which wasn’t much to this hefty guy’s liking either. I guess, slick glass surfaces are not among it’s natural habitat – mulch would’ve been more appreciated! After a few quick macro shots, I transfered it back into the wild beyond our hedge.

The mud encrusted, curvy horn identifies this fellow quite quickly as a ‘rhino horn’ scarab beetle, most likely a male, even though in some scarabaeidae species the ladies also have horns. 

Doesn’t he look like a Roman gladiator, who just won his duel? Such a tough cookie! He is about 4 cm/1.6″ long with a very rigid, cordovan red carapace. The top of his head extends into dual horns, making his appearance even more menacing.

On the other hand, those two cranial protrusions helped with the identification of our stout friend.

What we have here is a member of the Scarabaeidae family, a male 

Coelosis biloca (Linnaeus, 1767) 

  

The full sequence goes like this:

Coleoptera (bugs with wing covers)