【27mm】King Christmas Beetle with a perfect color combination of orange body and blue accents

Scientific Name: Anoplognathus sp.

Common Name: King Christmas beetle

The specific epithet viriditarsis means green feet and refers to the iridescence of the segments.

Anoplognathus viridiaeneus, commonly known as the King Christmas beetle, is a species of scarab beetle native to eastern Australia. It is the largest of the Christmas beetles, with adults sometimes exceeding 3 centimeters in length.

Edward Donovan described the King Christmas beetle as Melolontha viridi-nea in 1805, noting, Nature appears to have bestowed extraordinary attention on the decoration of this common insect. Its vivid colours are peculiar and unlike any other. Its hues captivate us more by contrast than by harmony. The contrast is indeed striking, even dazzling, yet produces a rich effect as a whole. He further described its coloration as tawny (reddish-brown) with a semi-transparent green and a brassy golden sheen when exposed to light. Its specific epithet derives from the Latin viridis green and aeneus coppery/bronze.

The King Christmas beetle was also described as Rutela caesarea by Gustav Johan Billberg in 1817 and as R. latreillei by Leonard Gyllenhaal.

When Leach established the genus Anoplognathus in 1815, no type species was designated. Phil Carne designated A. viridiaeneus as the type species in 1957.

It is the largest of the Christmas beetles, with adult males measuring 30–32 mm in length and 16–19 mm in width, and females measuring 28–34 mm in length and 16–19.5 mm in width. The body color is primarily reddish-brown with a golden-green hue. The head has rosy spots, and the pronotum, scutellum, and elytra have a golden sheen. The pygidium, coxae, and abdomen are bright green, and the legs are reddish-brown with black tarsi.

We apologize, but we cannot guarantee against downgrading due to shipping.
We will ship a specimen collected in Windsor, New South Wales, Australia. It was collected on January 2, 2017. My measurement of the body length was 27mm.