This truly disgusting looking creature is the larva, or grub, of a south American rainforest species of rhinoceros beetle called Dynastes hercules which is commonly known as the HERCULES BEETLE.  The grub is pictured with an English 1p coin to show its size, which in these pictures is still far from fully grown!

As you can see in the picture below, these grubs have very sharp jaws which they use to chew through the rotten wood in which they live and on which they feed.  They can bite quite hard if they feel threatened and for this reason need to be handled very carefully, if at all!

All beetles go through a 'grub' stage during their life cycle, which is known as a 'complete metamorphosis' because they completely change their appearance during this life cycle.  They start off life as an egg and hatch into a small grub, this grub then gets bigger and bigger until eventually (after about 1 - 2 years in the case of this particular species of beetle) it pupates and then transforms into the beetle, which looks completely different to the grub itself!

The males of this species of beetle have huge horns which can actually grow longer than their bodies, and look like this:

Photograph of  adult male Dynastes hercules courtesy of Matthew Smith, entomologist

The female beetles do not have horns and are therefore much smaller than the male beetles in total length.  The two grubs which I have in my collection are both males and will therefore one day produce beetles like the one above, but it takes a very keen eye and expert knowledge to tell the male and female grubs apart so my thanks to Matthew Smith for his expertise in this area!