Host Crop: Coconut, Date palm, Oil palm, Arecanut palm Rhinoceros beetles (oryctes Rhinoceros) are herbivorous insects named for the horn-like projections on and around the males' heads. Most are black, gray, or greenish in color, and some are covered in soft hairs. Another name given to some of these insects is the Hercules beetle, because they possess a strength of Herculean proportion. Adults of some species can lift objects 850 times their weight. One way the beetles use this extreme strength is to dig themselves into leaf litter and soil to escape danger. Their horns also help them to do this. Rhinoceros beetles can grow up to six inches (15 centimeters).