The Moon and Harris's Dung beetle

[stagfoot]

Frieda Harris's beetle often looked odd to me in the past, but I guess I was distracted enough not to focus on it.
But now I'm thinking of making my own deck, and have been working on a moon card.
I have been looking at the thoth deck for some direction and I can't avoid the fact that this beetle ( if indeed it is one), looks nothing at all, not even the slightest piece like a dung beetle.

Did she not have a clue, or was she hinting at something else?

 

[Lillie]

What does a dung beetle look like then?

I thought it (the beetle on the card) was an egyptian scarab, which I thought was a dung beetle.
Is it not?

Maybe she had never seen one.
I never have...

Not that many here in Britain.

Doesn't Crowley say it's 'the sacred Beetle, the Egyptian Kephra,bearing in his mandible the Solar disk'

So, I assume that is what he intended it to be.

What sort of Beetle do you think it is?
I havn't got a beetle book to look it up in.

 

[stagfoot]

This link shows a scarab, plus how how they navigate by moon light!

http://www.crystalinks.com/scarabs.html

 

[Lillie]

Yeah, you're quite right.

The one on the card is far too pointy at the end.

Maybe she just didn't know what it was meant to look like.

There is a stone scarab in the British museum, and it's huge.
Very tactile.
But if they catch you touching it they tell you off.

I got told off for touching lots of the exibits

I have found a few common british beetles in the back of a kids 'Garden wildlife' book.
The only one in there with a pointy end is the 'Devils coach horse'.
It turns it's tail up like a scorpion.
It also is nocturnal, and has carniverous larvea.
Yak.

Though the legs are wrong for it to be the one on the card.

 

[stagfoot]

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.

I wonder if the museum was closed during the war, and she couldn't get to see the scarabs.
Crowley was so fussy on other details. He seemed to miss this one though.

 

[stagfoot]

I think I've found it.
It's a four-banded longhorn beetle http://www.eimagesite.net/s1/gst/run.cgi?action=imagen&prid=375

The black markings can vary with each individual insect. Some appear more like spots, some like harlequin and some like horizontal stripes.

I think she just chose it because she liked it's appearance.

 

[Aeon418]

This is just a guess, but I that beetle might be exactly what Crowley wanted.
Somewhere in his "Confessions", Crowley mentions his house on the shores of Loch Ness, Boleskine, being plagued by swarms of beetles, of a type that he and supposedly the British Museum, had never seen before. He connected this incident to the verses concerning beetles in The Book of the Law.

 

[Teheuti]

Do a google image search on "water beetle" and you'll find lots of images that look very much like Harris' bug - especially some that are known as "diving beetles". See also the spotted water beetle.

 

[stagfoot]

Could be, but the spotted water beetle's still a tad on the chubby side, and it doesn't have the long 'horns' that can swing back along the whole length of the body.

I'm getting sick of looking at beetles, I can tell you! LOL.

I guess we can all agree on this though, that it looks nothing like the scarab.
IMO, it still supposed to be one, and maybe, just possibly, it could be Crowley's boleskine invaders as well!

 

[roppo]

The Harris's beetle is "Ａｃｒｏｓｉｎｕｓ ｌｏｎｇｉｍａｎｕｓ", very popular one among beetle fans (yes, such people really exist!) Its multi-colored 2 inch body with long fore-legs and elegant long horns has been fascinating those people all over the world. For closer look,

http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~tanu/tenagakamikiri.html

I think Harris adopted the beetle for its strange beauty.