There are exceptions to the rule of
male insects being smaller than the females, and some of these exceptions are
intelligible. Size and strength would be an advantage to the males which fight
for the possession of the females, and in these cases, as with the stag-beetle
(Lucanus), the males are larger than the females. There are, however, other
beetles which are not known to fight together, of which the males exceed the
females in size, and the meaning of this fact is not known, but in some of these
cases, as with the huge Dynastes and Megasoma, we can at least see that there
would be no necessity for the males to be smaller than the females, in order to
be matured before them, for these beetles are not short-lived, and there would
be ample time for the pairing of the sexes.