Dynastes

A male western hercules beetle, Arizona. Meet Dynastes granti. This behemouth of an insect is North America's heaviest scarab beetle, found in the mountains of the American southwest where adults feed on the sap of ash trees. I photographed these spectacular insects a few years ago while living in Tucson. The impressive pronotal horn on the beetle pictured above indicates a male; females are considerably more modest in their armaments: Male and female hercules beetles As is so often the case in animals, males use their horns to fight each other for access to females, attempting to pry…

...is to add an actual human. Dynastes granti - Western Hercules Beetle, Arizona It's funny how our social primate brain works. We gain immediate emotional access to an image simply by inserting a member of our own species. (Incidentally, that's one reason why David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth is so effective. With Attenborough able to share the screen with tiny arthropods, the result of a new generation of optics, that whole miniature world seems suddenly available.) Technical details: Lens: Canon 17-40 f4.0L wide angle zoom lens Body: Canon EOS 20D dSLR Settings: ISO 400…