Question about Indiana / Midwestern Beetle with horns.

Factual Questions
1

I have a question about beetles in Indiana. I was talking to a friend this morning and mentioned seeing a rhinoceros beetle when I was younger. He said “Yeah, those are rare around here, rare enough to only find them in a pet store.” I figure he is basically calling BS on me. Not that it matters but it did make me wonder if my memory is correct.

It would have been around 1980 or so, I was about 12. I found this beetle in my back yard in Indianapolis; West side, near Speedway actually. The beetle was about 3" long and about 3/4" to 1" of it was a huge horn on the top of it’s head. The horn matched up with a similar one coming out from the middle of the head area and I recall them pinching together. The inside of the horns were very loosely serrated with only about 2 ridges on each. The insect was black and shiny.

I thought (possibley incorrectly) that it was a rhinoceros beetle but after looking them up I find it more closely resembles a member of the Onthophagus family. My questions are: What onthophagus beetles occur around central Indiana? Given the discription would this have been a native species or an alien / introduced species? My Google work did turn up an article about certain scarab-type beetles being released to deal with animal dung, would this have been one of those?

Any input will be helpfull, including anicdotal stories about similar insects found in similar environments, but I would really like to ID this bug from 28 years ago.

Thanks in advance - N8

2

I grew up in Indiana and frequently saw similar beetles. I was told that they were one of the types of stag beetles. You could google that and see if one of them (there are many different types) matches what you saw.

3

I believe that stag beetles have mandibles that come out its mouth, symmetrically; the beetle the OP is describing sounds more like a dung or scarab beetle.

You can browse through this ID guide, fill in the blanks on the checklist, see what matches the bug you remember.

BTW, there are 75 species of North American Scarabaeinae, you don’t need to look to exotic introduced species.

As for “insects of Indiana”, since Google’s too cluttered up with articles on the amazing vanishing horns, your best bet might be to go down to the library and ask the Reference Librarian for a book.

4

Oddly enough, the one time I was collecting insects (this was for a summer project when I was a kid), I found a beetle such as you describe. I had never seen one before, and have never seen one since. As I recall, it had a yellow and black exterior, with spots. This was in Pennsylvania, though, not Indiana.

5

I think I found it. It looked like this Hercules Beetle only the one I found was about 2/3 the size and all black. I have not found any pictures of black ones yet, I feel this will help confirm the identification.