Lucanus planeti Planet, 1899

A quite common species that found from Thailand, Vietnam and South China (Yunnan, Shichuan, Guangxi); they are very varietal in body size. It close to Lucanus vitalisi and Lucanus laminifer but clearly difference in structure of clypeus.

 

 
Male of Lucanus planeti Planet, 1899

Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922

Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922 is a member of tribe Thraniini, subfamily Cerambycinae. They are wasp mimic cerambycinae beetles with the reduced elytra which be slender apically. Thranius multinotatus is wide distribute species, from Tibet to Japan (in some islands) and down to Indochina, however it is hard to be sure that they all be a same species. In my collection, Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922 was collected from Ha Giang, North Vietnam.

Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922 - dorsal view

Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922 - lateral view

Thranius multinotatus multinotatus Pic, 1922 - oblique view

Cheirotonus, Long arm beetles from Vietnam

Cheirotonus is a genus of Euchiridae or some author keep them in subfamily of Melolonthidae or subfamily Euchirinae of Scarabaeidae. Their English name is long arm beetle and in Vietnamese, they are called "Cua Bay" with meaning is flying craps, anyway, the name of the genus because of their very long fore legs. In Vietnam there are four species of the genus, three of them with mun-ti spots on the elytra: Cheirotonus battareli, Cheirotonus gestroi and Cheirotonus parryi and the remain with dark green elytra: Cheirotonus jansoni. 

The species Cheirotonus parryi is the first species that named for science of the genus, its name honor to Major Frederick John Sidney Parry who was a British Army Solder and an entomologist of Entomological Society of London and Linnae Society as well. He was an specialist of Coleoptera, particularly Lucanidae. In Vietnam the species Cheirotonus parryi  has been found from Southern Forests: Cat Tien National Park, Dong Nai Province.

Male of Cheirotonus parryi with long medial spine of fore legs.

Two other yellow spotted elytra species is Cheirotonus battareli and Cheirotonus gestroi. The species Cheirotonus battareli have been found only from North Vietnam: Sa Pa (Lao Cai), Van Ban (Yen Bai), Tay Con Linh (Ha Giang), Mau Son (Lang Son), Pia Oac (Cao Bang), Tam Dao (Vinh Phuc), Pu Mat (Nghe An)... and the later species Cheirotonus gestroi maybe distributes in South Center of Vietnam: Kon Tum, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Lam Dong. They are very similar each other but difference from Cheirotonus parryi in the medial spine of fore legs (shorter). In Cheirotonus gestroi, the lobe of medial spine of fore femur without teeth but there are some teeth on it of Cheirotonus battareli. 

 

Male of Cheirotonus battareli

Male of Cheirotonus gestroi

In 1994, Muramoto published a paper with description of Cheirotonus fujiokai from China, near Vietnam border (Ha Giang Province). The question if Cheirotonus fujiokai can be found from Vietnam has not been answered, however this small size species very similar to Cheirotonus gestroi but difference from both Cheirotonus gestroi and Cheirotonus battareli in medio-lateral shallows depression of pronotum of male: in Cheirotonus fujiokai, the area just finely punctured but it is deeply punctured in two previous species. 

Male of Cheirotonus fujiokai (from original description)

Male of Cheirotonus jansoni

Herculaisia, the Hercules Beetles

Herculaisia is a genus of Cetoniinae subfamily, Scarabaeidae family; some authors recorded it as family level, Cetoniidae. Members of Cetoniinae also known as flower chafer though many of them feed on tree sap, fungi or fruit, not flowers.

Name of the genus origin from Hercules, a Roman name of the famous hero of Greek mythology, Heracles. Heracles is haft man, haft god; he is a son of Zeus, the King of Gods, and a mortal woman (her name is Alcmene). Zeus named Heracles to honor his wife, Hera, and  "heracles" is meaning of  Hera's glory. Hera, the Queen of Gods, who is Zeus's wife, tried to kill Heracles by sent to his crib two snakes as he just a baby. However Heracles killed them all, each one in each hand. As grow up, Heracles was compelled to perform a series of heroic tasks for his cousin Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae. One of the tasks is killing the Hydra, a monster that relate to his dead later. Hydra is munti-head monster, that lived in the swamps of Lerna, and be known as an position monster (lethal can be found in its breath, blood or even footprints). Heracles cut off all the head of the monster Hydra with help of his nephew, Iolaus; as soon as Heracles cut off one Hydra's head, his nephew was there to sear the wounded neck with flame to prevent many more snaky head grow up. Hydra's blood related to his dead, as trying to cross the river with his third wife, Deianara, Heracles allowed a centaur, named Nessus, to ferry Deianara across the river but then the centaur had attacked her on the other side. Heracles killed him with an arrow that treated by poisonous Hydra blood. Before Nessus die, he told Deinara to keep some of his blood for a love potion. Deinara used some on Heracles' tunic to keep him faithful, little realizing that it had been poisoned with Hydra venom from the arrow. Heracles donned the tunic and died in agony.

Hercules and the Hydra, painted by Antonio del Polaiolo (1431-1498) Florence, Rome

The genus Herculaisia was erected by Seilliere in 1910, in description of the species Herculaisia satanas, the species found from North Vietnam, Ha Giang. There are only two species of the genus, the second species also found from Ha Giang and South China, Herculaisia malaleuca was transferred from the genus Neophaedimus. H. melaleuca much more common than it related species H. stanas.

Male of Herculaisia melaleuca (Fairmaire, 1899)

Male of Herculaisia satanas Seilliere, 1910

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) and mimicry of Papilio butterflies

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) is a moth that belong the family Epicopeiidae, they are day flying months. Most of moths are night active insects but some of them fly during the day, one of the well know and common day flying moth is insect of family Zyganidae. Members of Epicopeiidae are not variation as Zyganidae but they are very remarkable with their mimicry of Papilio butterflies. E. polydora has been found in North Vietnam and Thailand as well. They are typical Papilio mimic moth of Epicopeiidae, the wings are mainly deep black as many members of Papilio butterflies and the red, white, shining metallic blue marking on the wings are very similar to Papilio. Size of the moth also same as many large side Papilio. The hind wings of the Epicopeia also elongate when its folded partly, it will be same shape of the hind wing of swallow tail butterflies, Papilio. 

Epicopeida is easy to recognized to be a moth because the structure of their antenna, with comb shape, not slender as it of butterflies. However moth's enemies are not entomologists and they are not easy to separate a moth flying in the day with a Papilio, then to be a thing like Papilio, Epicopeida will not be attracted by predators that don't want to eat Papilio.

The day-flying moths also can be separated by the way and time of their flying, they seem slower than butterflies but normally fly higher than butterflies do.

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) (dorsal view)

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) (ventral view)

Some of black wings Papilio butterflies found from Vietnam:

Papilio elwesi Leech, 1889 This species have been found from North Vietnam and South China. 

Papilio protenor Fruhstorfer, 1908

Papilio paris Linaeus, 1758. 

Papilio memmon Linaeus, 1758

Papilio helenus Linaeus, 1758

Note: Three last Papilio were described by "the father of taxonomy", Carl Linaeus.