Unfortunately for potential pet beetle owners like me, Viasus does not ship his beetles to the United States because the US Fish and Wildlife neglected one of his shipments, causing the deaths hundreds of his beetles, despite their having proper documentation.Īfter hatching, the beetle larvae look like large white worms. "If I produced 1,000 beetles a day," Viasus observed, "I could sell them all." Those that are exported to Japan fetch up to $350 for a live male - considering that the adults live approximately 6 months, this is a very expensive pet!
Dead preserved beetles are sold to museums, collectors and scientists in Europe while live beetles are generally exported to Asia as pets. Currently, he is allowed to export up to 300 live and 100 dead beetles each month.
Because Viasus owns the only beetle-breeding and -exporting business that is approved by both Colombian and Japanese governments, it is quite lucrative. Additionally, beetles are protagonists in video games and comic books, and beetle-based cartoon characters adorn lunchboxes and children's pajamas much like Mickey Mouse does in the United States.Ĭurrently, Viasus exports his captive-raised beetles overseas to to Germany, Canada, China and Thailand, and especially to Japan, where they are all the rage, especially among young boys. Viasus later learned that, in Japan, big beetles are good-luck charms and symbols of strength and tenacity. His Japanese guests became extremely excited, exclaiming "pretty! pretty! pretty!" repeatedly at the sight of the insects. Even though the beetles did not consume chicken bones, Viasus thought the insects were interesting and began breeding them.īut it wasn't until a group of Japanese businessmen first saw his beetles that Viasus realized that breeding and exporting them could be the basis of a successful business venture. "I took care of those eggs as if they were my babies," he said. He didn't know what species of insect they were, so he kept them and waited for them to hatch. Viasus's involvement with the large beetles was serendipitous: he was originally a student in industrial engineering, researching methods for increasing the natural decomposition of chicken bones in an environmentally safe way when he discovered 56 small white eggs nestled in a pile of rotting wood. His entire facility is less than half an acre in size, and is denoted with a large sign by the road that has a picture of a flying Hercules beetle on it.
Certainly, they are more fascinating than any creature that science fiction movies or television has cooked up these past decades.įortunately, Viasus does not exploit the local wild beetle populations, many of which are becoming endangered, because he raises the Hercules beetles, Dynastes hercules, Neptune beetles, Dynastes neptunus, and Elephant beetles, Megasoma elephas - the largest beetle species on earth - on his farm, located 80 miles away from the capital, Bogota.
When I say "giant beetles" I mean it! These spectacular New World scarab beetles are as long as a person's hand and weigh as much as a golden hamster. But I just read about an entrepreneur, German Viasus, who lives in the South American country, Colombia, who raises and sells giant beetles to the overseas pet market. While I do enjoy the companionship of my pets, I enjoy keeping interesting animals as pets, and that means that, in addition to the large variety of mammals, birds, fishes and the few reptiles, amphibians and crustaceans that I've lived with and cared for, I have also kept a small variety of insects as pets, including ants, several species of stick insects, preying mantids, the local wild field crickets, several species of ladybugs, caterpillars, and aphids. What constitutes a pet? Different people keep pets for different reasons, although I'll guess that companionship is likely the top reason for keeping pets. This is a popular pet throughout Asia, especially in Japan. Male Hercules beetle, Dynastes hercules hercules,įrom South America.
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