Devil’s Coach Horse

Devil’s Coach Horse Beetle (Ocypus olens)

I’ve been wanting to photograph one of these for a while. It is one of the beetles that I associate with my childhood (The other is the stag beetle for anyone keeping notes) I used to cycle up to the army shooting range near me and look for them at the bottom of the trenches. Obviously I did this when they weren’t being used, I think I would have been an inconvenience crawling over people’s feet whilst they operated firearms.

I see these every now and again but they seldom stay still long enough for any shot, let alone a close-up. I found this one at night and although still fairly active it did pause a few times long enough for me to approach it with the camera. In my head the dream shot would be a perfectly head-on, ground level image where the abdomen is visible in the characteristic, scorpion like, arch. Given that they only go into this defensive pose when threatened, I wouldn’t deliberately aggravate one for the sake of a photo. Plus I’m not a very threatening individual so it would probably just laugh me off.