European Rhinoceros Beetle

• The male's horn is not a weapon for killing: it is used as a lever to prise rivals out in fights over females.
• The adults barely feed and live only a few weeks: all the energy was stored by the larva during its three or four years underground.
• Compost heaps, sawmill sawdust and stacked bark have become an important substitute habitat for it, now that dead wood is scarce in managed forests.
• It is one of the largest beetles in Europe, and the male bears a curved horn on its head that it uses in fights with other males.
• The larva is enormous, up to 10 cm, and takes between three and five years to develop inside dead wood or compost.
• It has changed habitat: as dead wood is scarce in managed forests, today it lives mainly in piles of sawdust, wood shavings and compost of human origin, which have become its main refuge.
• It is completely harmless despite its looks: the adult barely eats, and the horn serves to attack no one but another male.
• It is the obligatory prey of the mammoth wasp, Megascolia maculata, which paralyses its larvae and lays an egg on each one.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Woodland with dead wood, sawmills and compost heaps

Sources consulted: Buglife; Natural History Museum de Londres; proyecto LIFE4OakForests

Best time: From June to August, when the adults fly at dusk