Asian Long-horned Beetle

One of the fun things about living in another part of the world is seeing things in their native environment. Over the past week, I've seen flying objects that are reminiscent of hummingbirds.  The most recent encounter happened on Kadena, and I was so distracted by this thing hovering above the road that I nearly ran into the curb.  I knew these things absolutely could not be hummingbirds because hummers don't exist in this part of the world.  Sometimes a vagrant hummer will end up in Russia or northern Japan during spring and summer, but those are very rare and they probably don't last very long.

Today, the mystery was solved.  I greeted Ryan at the front door when he came home from work, and we chatted a bit before going inside.  While we talked, Ryan saw one of these hummer imposters fly in and land on our banana(-less) trees in the driveway.  We walked over and saw that it was a large beetle.  I ran inside to grab one of the nets we use for the aquarium, and as I came out to hand it to Ryan, the beetle took off. Beetles are not the best flyers, but this beetle made pretty good time along a very convoluted route through our front yard.  Quick to react, Ryan grabbed the net, sprinted across the lawn, and caught the beetle with a single SWOOP of the net!  I would not pet Ryan as a dancer, but he is quite graceful with an insect net.

Inside, an Asian long-horned beetle.  An invasive pest in the U.S., it is right at home here in Okinawa.  After a google search, we learned that these beetles are considered pests of Japan and eastern Asia as well, but at least they are native pests.