Coconut rhinoceros beetle
The coconut rhinoceros beetle is a big, shiny, dark brown to black beetle with a horn on its head, just like a little rhino. It lives in tropical Asia and on many Pacific islands. It loves palm trees, and that makes it a big problem for coconut farmers.
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Fun facts
It flies only at night.
The male's horn is bigger than the female's.
The mother beetle chops old palm wood into tiny bits so her babies have soft food, and the father often helps.
It first reached the island of Samoa in 1909, hidden in soil with young rubber trees.
From egg to the end of the grub stage takes about five months.
Most asked questions about Coconut rhinoceros beetle
?Is the coconut rhinoceros beetle dangerous?
Not to people. But it can damage and even kill palm trees.
?How big is the coconut rhinoceros beetle?
About 3.5 to 5 centimetres long.
?What does the coconut rhinoceros beetle eat?
The beetles eat young palm leaves, and the grubs eat rotting wood and compost.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Oryctes rhinoceros
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Asiatic rhinoceros beetle, Coconut palm rhinoceros beetle
Where the facts come from
- Oryctes rhinoceros (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by oscaryin - ๅฐน่ฅๅฎ. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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