beetle encounter

And I'm not talking about Ringo.
Tonight I went to the local internet/phone center to make a call home and walked out on the balcony to find this:

It looked exactly like this one except bigger! He was slowly crawling alongside a table. This thing was way bigger than any roach or beetle I'd ever seen in Texas. I couldn't resist not poking him so I did. The shell on his back was real thick and felt like an acorn or something.
This was the first time I'd ever seen one of these things living, at the Jaguar Rescue Center that had several dead ones preserved in jars.
I asked the lady in the store how to say this beetle's name and she said "escarabajo". I looked it up and it means beetle, I tried to find a more scientific name for it online but all I can come up with is "escarabajo de jardin" or "garden beetle". She was even nice enough to pick it up for me and show me what it looks like from underneath. I didn't ask her to....but thanks anyway I guess? It had this yellow ribbed stomach with all these furry appendages wiggling about. Its face had these little round eyes I'm guessing and some kind of fuzzy mouth.

The locals seem very accepting to the insects here, no matter her big or gross. Even to those grasshoppers, if one starts causing trouble and flying into people's faces, someone will just pick him up gently and toss him over the fence.
Quite different than back home! I imagine we'd have sprayed every gallon of cancer causing chemicals to rid our land of these creatures. I have yet to see someone squash a bug. Maybe it's because of the huge mess it would cause and they don't want to clean it up? Imagine all the juice and guts inside one of those things....eck.

So that was the highlight of my day. Another  insect on my list to see is the RHINO BEETLE. Check out this bad boy:

They are in Costa Rica but hide during the day. If you disturb one they'll hiss at you. The guide at the rescue center said he only saw one once, when a little local boy captured one and was going around showing it to people on the beach for a dollar. He said the boy had red marks on his arm from the rhino beetle pinching him with its horns!!
These things can get HUGE and can fly so I only hope it's me that discovers them and not the other way around.