Most Expensive Insect

Bug collecting can be seen as a hobby, a zoological science or, perhaps most commonly, an icky thing to do. There are over 1.3 million described species of insect (not including arachnids, centipedes and other myriapods, earthworms or slugs—none of which are truly insects), meaning that over 2/3rds of all known organisms are insects. Enthusiasts and professional entomologists may pin dead bugs into glass-covered boxes, keep live insects or both. Recently, the most expensive insect in the world was delivered to an insect shop in Tokyo.

The expensive bug in question was a stag beetle, one of 1,200 insects in the family Lucanidae. So called because of their fearsome, antler-like mandibles, stag beetles are actually non-aggressive towards humans generally. The males of the species use their mandibles to wrestle each other for mating privileges while females’ mandibles are proportionate to those of normal beetles.

While stag beetles typically grow to around two inches, the world’s most expensive insect was over three inches long. It was hand-carried to the insect shop from its breeder in central Japan and sold for 10 million yen ($89,000 USD).

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