The heaviest insect
Its grub can weigh up to 100 grams: about as much as a small apple. No insect is known to be heavier.
The Congo rainforest · Beetles
Goliath beetle
Goliathus
A huge beetle with a black and white striped thorax and chestnut-brown wing cases.
- Size
- Up to 11cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Rainforest in West and central Africa, high in the trees
Lumbers after you, and flies like a toy helicopter. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Goliath beetle
Good to know
Six things about the goliath beetle
It sounds like a drone
In flight its wings make a deep whirr, loud enough to hear from across a clearing.
It drinks sap
Adults feed on tree sap and ripe fruit, high in the canopy.
A fork on its nose
The male has a Y-shaped horn on his head, and uses it to push rivals away from food.
A grub that eats meat
Unlike most beetle grubs, it needs a lot of protein to grow so large.
Wings under a lid
It does not lift its wing cases to fly. The wings slide out from underneath, through a gap at the side.
The real thing
Photos of the goliath beetle
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
They live in the treetops and are seldom seen on the ground. People find them at sap flowing from a wounded tree.
How to help
Goliath beetles need big, old forest trees. Where the forest is cleared, they go.
Keep going
More from The Congo rainforest
‹ Picasso bugBack to The Congo rainforestA to ZGiant millipede ›