Another Biggie - Giant Orange Flower Beetle - Finis

[AlP]

Another recent acquisition, a Giant Orange Flower beetle native to Africa around Uganda. Specimen is 67mm tip to tip. Specimen was dirty with what looked like clay. I tried something different this time out. I used a hot water bath (brought to a boil and let sit for five minutes then added specimen) to rehydrate and free up the legs. I used a warm water ultrasonic cleaning in between each bath with no soap added. It still had "clay" deposits on it which I tried removing with a q-tip. I did what I could. Anyway...

Original before cleaning. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon 100 macro, 36 steps at 1mm.

Front view after cleaning. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon 100 macro, 46 steps at 1mm.

Side view. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon 100 macro, 53 steps at 1mm.

Head side view. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon 100 macro, 18 steps at 1mm.

Closer view of little horn, antenna and eyeball. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon MPE 65mm, 2x, 57 steps at 250µm.

[Marcepstein]

Great color and details!

[MarkSturtevant]

I agree! Fine work.

[Bob-O-Rama]

The eyes are really amazing. Dd you have to do any special prep to get them to look that clean / clear? They almost seem to have a perfectly spherical cuticle. ( If you take requests... closeup on the eye. )

[rjlittlefield]

Very nice!

It looks to me like you got the clay off pretty well.

From what I read, the gray stripes are part of the beetle, highly variable. I even see one company offering live specimens that have supposedly been bred to be pure orange, no gray stripes. Those are at https://richardsinverts-store.com/produ ... nge-larvae (sorry, sold out now!). The Wikipedia article shows a lot of variations.

The mirror globe eyes are spectacular. This is another member of the Scarabaeidae, where shiny eyes seem to be a common feature. The two species in my collection both have eyes with smooth surfaces (HERE). In quick scan of BugGuide it is easy to find more that are like mirrors, for example https://bugguide.net/node/view/2139029/bgimage and https://bugguide.net/node/view/472394/bgimage . But mirrorlike is not universal, for example https://bugguide.net/node/view/1626428/bgimage .

--Rik

[AlP]

The eyes are really amazing. Dd you have to do any special prep to get them to look that clean / clear? They almost seem to have a perfectly spherical cuticle. ( If you take requests... closeup on the eye. )

I shall try and fulfill your request sometime this week (for my own curiosity as well). I didn't do anything special, a couple of soakings in hot water and a couple of ultrasonic baths sans soap.

[AlP]

The mirror globe eyes are spectacular. This is another member of the Scarabaeidae, where shiny eyes seem to be a common feature. The two species in my collection both have eyes with smooth surfaces (HERE). In quick scan of BugGuide it is easy to find more that are like mirrors, for example https://bugguide.net/node/view/2139029/bgimage and https://bugguide.net/node/view/472394/bgimage . But mirrorlike is not universal, for example https://bugguide.net/node/view/1626428/bgimage .

--Rik

Thanx for the info, Rik. Much appreciated.

[AlP]

The eyes are really amazing. Dd you have to do any special prep to get them to look that clean / clear? They almost seem to have a perfectly spherical cuticle. ( If you take requests... closeup on the eye. )

Eyeball at 5x, 44 steps at 70µm. Is this close enough? Single straight flash left side, no diffusion. Canon 5D MK IV with Canon MPE 65mm racked out to 5x.

Another view, eye from top at 5x, 42 steps at 70µm.

[Adalbert]

very nice !

[AlP]

Head, top view at 1x, 21 steps at 600µm.

Head, underside view 1x, 24 steps at 600µm.

Right side antenna 5x, 42 steps at 70µm. Finis.

[Bob-O-Rama]

Those eyes are just insane. Thanks for posting them.