The Moon and Harris's Dung beetle

I would have said no to this beetle, Roppo, even though the legs and horns are right.
The markings are too different, and the tail has a chopped off look.
but then there's this earlier version of the card, http://www.occultartgallery.com/occultartgallery/harris/S_MOON.html which I think looks more like your acrocinus longimous.
It certainly doesn't look like the Four-Banded Longhorn here.

That certainly does look like it roppo.

-fof

stagfoot said:

yes, the markings are wrong for the Devils coach horse too. (what a wonderful name!)
The card shows a kind of harlequin type pattern on the insect

Click to expand...

Stagfoot, you did a correct observation. The English name for Acrosinus longmanus is "harlequin beetle". The marking of the back is rather obscure because of its small size on the card, but the long fore-legs (arms?) are unmistakable, I suppose. Perhaps we might ask beetle-speciallists' opinion for this!

Wow!

Never knew there were so many beetles!

None of them were in the 'garden wildlife' book...

The harlequin beetle does look like the markings on the proper card, but not those amazing, trailing legs (or whatever they are)

That bit of it, and the one on the old card looks like the other one.
But I couldn't read about it because the page was all foreign.
Is it native to Britain?
Could it be Crowleys spooky beetle from Loch Ness?

Well spotted, Stagfoot.
I must have looked at that card thousands of times, and seen loads of the stylised egyptian scarabs, without ever wondering!
Even in their legless, stylised form they are always round at the back end.

That will teach me to take Mr C's word for it!

I'm delighted to learn about the harlequin beetle. Still, it seems a bit strange that a rather rare Peruvian beetle would end up emerging out of the waters of the Moon card pushing a sun. It goes down on my list of possibilities, but I still think it is some kind of water beetle.

Can't be Crowleys mystery beetle then, if it's from Peru.
There's some funny things in Loch Ness (so they say) But probably not them.

Still, Harris could have found it in a book of Beetles and liked it so much she used it instead of a scarab.

It is very pretty.

Tehuti, have you got a link to the water Beetles that look like this?
Cos they would probably be in Loch Ness.

(I went there, we slept on the shore of the Loch and everything. We even scammed our way into Urquart Castle for free, but we never saw the monster )

Well that solves it then, I think the simplified makings on the final card version, are just to make it look more like it's namesake.

Thanks for your help Roppo. and everyone else for that matter.

Lillie you're right, it's unlikely to be this insect, and the one from the Loch.
I don't have an answer to this, it would be nice if it could be both! LOL

I was just thinking, the only other harlequin in the deck is the Adjustment card.
Could Maat be here in a hidden form to give balance to the moon?

just a mad thought perhaps.

Crowley's Mystery Beelte

In his "Confessions" Crowley wrote about the beetle --

"It was about an inch and a half long and had a single horn nearly as long as itself. The horn ended in a small sphere suggestive of an eye...I sent a specimen to London but the experts were unable to identify the species"

I believe it was a kind of helmet beetles which might had been smuggled into Scotland from Asia by Crowley without knowing.

For the possible candidate, here is Japanese Allomyrina dichotomus --

http://www.beetlefactory.com/ad.html

(it's a most beloved beetle in Japan. An average Japanese boy sacrifices at least 1 summer of his boyhood for the study and catching of these beetles. I was not an exception)

That is a very weird looking thing!

Why is it so beloved in Japan?

And why are they caught and studied?

What do they do that is worth seeing?

When I was a kid here in Britain, like a lot of other kids, I had frog spawn in an old washing up bowl, that I was hoping would become first tadpoles, and then frogs.

It never did.

So, I was wondering, do those beetles do something interesting? Or is there a particular story attatched to them that make them so popular?

I'm just nosey, and I couldn't read about it on that page, because of the language.

And by the way, Roppo. I would never have guessed you were from Japan. Your English is perfect.