Rhinoceros beetle

Sunday, August 29, 2010

 

On Thursday night, we traveled to Peppersauce Campground on the north side of the Santa Catalina Mountains, AZ.  We set up a mercury vapor lamp and the first visitor was this beautiful rhinoceros beetle, Dynastes granti.  This is a male with a large hairy pronotal horn and a forked cephalic horn, which are used to spar with other males for access to females.  The females don’t have horns.  We also found some great big moths, a few glorious scarab beetles (Chrysina gloriosa) and several female ox beetles (Strategus aloeus).