Goliath beetle
The Goliath beetle is one of the biggest insects in the world. A big male can be as long as a grown-up's hand is wide. It has a black and white striped back shield and brown wing cases, and it can really fly.
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Fun facts
Males can be up to 11 centimetres long.
The male has a black Y-shaped horn on his white head. He uses it like a crowbar to push other males away from food.
Under its hard wing cases it hides a second pair of thin wings, folded up when it is not flying.
Some Goliath beetles have mostly white wing cases instead of brown ones.
In 1959 a living one from Gabon went on show in a museum in New York. People think it was the first one seen alive in the United States.
Most asked questions about Goliath beetle
?How big is a Goliath beetle?
Males are 5 to 11 centimetres long, and females 5 to 8 centimetres. It is one of the largest insects in the world.
?Can Goliath beetles fly?
Yes. They have big thin wings folded under their hard wing cases.
?What does a Goliath beetle eat?
Mainly tree sap and fruit.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Goliathus goliatus
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- Africa
Where the facts come from
- Goliathus goliatus (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 Didier Descouens. 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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