Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 23, 2025
I select from my heap of garden-mould, that inexhaustible mine, two larvae of the Rhinoceros Beetle, Oryctes nasicornis, about one-third full-grown, so that their size may not be out of proportion to the Scolia's. It is in fact almost identical with the size of the Cetonia. I paralyse one of them by giving an injection of ammonia in the nerve-centres.
The largest are the three thoracic ganglia and the eleventh. After ascertaining these facts, I remembered Swammerdam's investigations into the grub of the Monoceros, our Oryctes nasicornis. I consulted the venerable volume.
According to the Italian observer Passerini, the Garden Scolia feeds her family on the larvae of Oryctes nasicornis, in the heaps of old tan-waste removed from the hot-houses. I do not despair of seeing this colossal Wasp coming to establish herself one day in my heaps of leaf-mould, in which the same Scarabaeid is swarming.
In the females of O. gryphus and nasicornis the ribs on the rasp of the pro-pygidium are less continuous and less distinct than in the males; but the chief difference is that the whole upper surface of this segment, when held in the proper light, is seen to be clothed with hairs, which are absent or are represented by excessively fine down in the males.
The Garden Scolia attacks Oryctes nasicornis; the Two-banded Scolia the Cetonia; the Interrupted Scolia the Anoxia. All three operate below ground, under the most unfavourable conditions; and all three have for their victim a larva of one of the Scarabaeidae, which, thanks to the exceptional arrangement of its nerve-centres, lends itself, alone of all larvae, to the Wasp's successful enterprises.
If this had happened in a higher order of the animal world, it would make one's flesh creep to watch the Carabus half immersed in the big Cockchafer and rooting out his entrails. I test the eviscerator with a more difficult quarry. This time the victim is Oryctes nasicornis, the powerful Rhinoceros Beetle, an invincible giant, one would think, under the shelter of his armour.
Apart from a few details, which are of no importance here, we may repeat this sketch of the Anoxia-grub and we shall have, if the size be at least quadrupled, a picture of the larva of Oryctes nasicornis, the monstrous prey of the Garden Scolia. Its general appearance is the same: there is the same exaggeration of the belly; the same hook-like curve; the same incapacity for standing on its legs.
The black Cricket, with his red-braided thighs, is the infallible label of the Yellow-winged Sphex; the larva of Oryctes nasicornis tells us of the Garden Scolia as certainly as the best description; the Cetonia-grub proclaims the Two-banded Scolia and the larva of the Anoxia announces the Interrupted Scolia.
The whole of the animal's body, therefore, no matter which fragment be submitted to the steeping process, yields the virus that so greatly pricks my curiosity. The cause of the effects which I observe is therefore connected with general properties which I ought to find in any insect, even the most harmless. I consult Oryctes nasicornis, the peaceable rhinoceros beetle, on this subject.
It includes the largest of our Beetles, the common Rhinoceros Beetle, or Oryctes nasicornis. I find some who have been recently liberated, whose wing-cases, of a glossy brown, now see the sunlight for the first time; I find others enclosed in their earthen shell, almost as big as a Turkey's egg. More frequent is her powerful larva, with its heavy paunch, bent into a hook.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking