Japanese city offers beetle larvae as gifts for tax donations

KORIYAMA, Fukushima – A tourism facility in the Japanese city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, has successfully bred Hercules beetles.

The city has started offering Hercules beetles as gifts for its hometown tax donation programme to promote itself nationwide as a “sacred site for insects”.

Hercules beetles – known as some of the world’s largest beetles – live in Central and South America and are also known as “the king of rhinoceros beetles”. The adult male has two straight long, black horns and may reach a massive 18cm long.

Mushi Mushi Land, a tourism facility run by an organisation affiliated with the city, has been breeding Hercules beetles since 2024, and visitors can observe living insects and learn about their care and ecology.

With guidance from experts, the facility has raised three pairs of adult beetles in controlled temperatures of 22 deg C to 23 deg C. The females laid 114 eggs in the first year and 75 in the second, and since this spring, one beetle after the other has reached adulthood.

For the gifts under the tax donation programme, the city offered 15 male larvae that are just about to enter their pupal stage. Donors who contributed 21,000 yen (S$170) or more through the programme were eligible to receive one. Applications for 2026’s first round were already closed.

One larva weighs about 150g and measures over 10cm long. According to the city, donors will be able to observe their growth into adult beetles over the course of more than a year.

To prevent the larvae from being impacted by delivery, they will be shipped when the weather is not excessively hot.

The town of Tokiwa, which merged with other towns to form the city of Tamura, was known for its thriving tobacco leaf production. The leaf mould used to grow seedlings was ideal for beetles to lay their eggs, and numerous rhinoceros beetles inhabited the town.

In 1988, the town declared itself the “Natural Kingdom of Rhinoceros Beetles”. It also designated June 4 as “Insect Day” and began an effort to rejuvenate the town using insects.

After Tamura was formed, the city established an “insect division” in 2023 – an imaginary division headed by Kabuton, a character modelled after a rhinoceros beetle. Through the city’s official YouTube channel, it promotes Mushi Mushi Land and tries to convey the appeal of insects.

At the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, the city set up a mini-dome where visitors could interact with rhinoceros beetles. On June 27, it organised the “fifth national stag beetles summit”, which drew a lively crowd of about 700 people, including families with children, from in and outside the prefecture.

Actor Hideaki Ito, known as an insect lover, talked on the theme of “Love for Insects”, while schoolchildren shared how their affection for insects grew after raising rhinoceros beetles.

Following the 2011 nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Holdings’ Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, evacuation orders were issued for parts of the city. After the orders were lifted, the area suffered from damage affecting agricultural products and other goods.

“The fact that many insects can live here means that the natural environment in woodlands is being well preserved,” Mayor Takashi Shiraishi said.

“I want people to know that this is also a comfortable place for people to live in.” THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK