This page is a garden on the edge of the woods in Japan, with rice fields beyond. Move your pointer and your bug will trundle, hover or flutter after you. Choose a different bug at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
Kyoto right now checking the sky…
In Japan it is called kabutomushi, which means helmet insect, because its horn looks like the crest of a samurai helmet.
Males fight over sap by sliding the horn under a rival and tossing him off the tree.
It is the most popular pet insect in Japan, and children feed it on jelly made for the purpose.
It can pull many times its own weight, and beetle-pulling contests are a children's game.
The adult lives for only two or three months. The grub spends most of a year in leaf mould.
It comes at night to oak trees where sap is leaking, and so do hornets and butterflies.
Meet them all
Trypoxylus dichotomus
A glossy, dark red-brown beetle. The male has a long horn on his head that forks at the tip.
Vespa mandarinia
A very large wasp with an orange head, a dark brown thorax and an abdomen banded in orange and brown.
Trichonephila clavata
A slim spider with a yellow abdomen banded in blue-grey, a red patch near the tail, and long black legs ringed with yellow.
Sympetrum frequens
A small dragonfly. The male's abdomen turns bright red in autumn.
Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata
A stout, dark brown cicada with cloudy brown wings: most cicadas have clear ones.
Sasakia charonda
A large, dark butterfly. The male's wings flash violet-blue near the body, and are scattered with white and yellow spots.
Through the year
Japan has four seasons, like Britain, with a hot and humid summer. Most insects are out from June to September. The bug following you is shown in red.
Good to know
Rhinoceros and stag beetles are sold in pet shops and department stores every summer.
Catching insects with a net and a little cage is a favourite holiday pastime for children.
The noise of cicadas is so much a part of the season that it is used in films to show that it is hot.
Red dragonflies over the rice fields are a sign that summer is ending, and there is a well-known song about them.
Fireflies, cicadas and crickets have been written about in Japanese poetry for more than a thousand years.
Many of these insects live in the managed woods beside villages. As those woods are abandoned, some are becoming scarce.
Asian bugs: 1 more place
Real photos of the bugs on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
In Japan, children keep beetles as pets, crickets are kept for their song, and the first cicada and the first red dragonfly of the year are noticed and talked about.
Back to the topBugs from other parts of the world live on their own pages: choose another.