Our Rhino Beetle rides a Tyrannosaurus

The morning after moving to our new home I noticed a visitor crawling outside on the screen of our living room window. Upon closer examination I noticed it was a beetle. I brought it in to show the kids and put it back outside on the screen once they lost interest. It remained there for a few days so I talked my wife into allowing us to keep it as a pet as it obviously likes our house and there wasn’t much for it to eat on the screen. It seems happy in its terrarium and spends most of the day under the soil I added. It often comes out at night to eat a special jelly for beetles sold in pet stores all over Taiwan. It’s a Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle [Allomyrina dichotoma] and later I found out it probably escaped from the neighbor’s house. It looks like the children of the house have a small area dedicated to breeding beetles outside their home. I hope they don’t think I maliciously stole one of their beetles.

Nathan asked in all seriousness if he could hit the beetle

Keeping beetles as a pet seems to have waned in popularity since I first moved here. At that time an arcade game called Mushiking: The King of the Beetles had trading cards with barcodes that were scanned into the machine. This was all the rage with youths and many pet stores had rows of terrariums devoted to beetles.

Intriguing!

Our children like their pet beetle and ask for a closer look when he’s out of the soil eating. Josie is even fond of having me take him out and she watches him crawl on my hands but she hasn’t worked up the courage to hold him herself yet.

Keeping a Distance