Heaviest Insects in the World
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Heaviest Insects in the WorldThe giant wētā (71 g) holds the verified record for the heaviest adult insect, a flightless New Zealand cricket relative that grew so large in the absence of mammal predators. Behind it sits a cluster of massive tropical beetles - the Goliath, Actaeon and elephant beetles (all around 50 g) and the titan beetle (≈40 g) - whose armoured bodies make them the heavyweights of the flying insect world. The giant burrowing cockroach (≈30 g) rounds out the list. A striking footnote: several of these beetles' larvae are even heavier than the adults, with Actaeon beetle grubs recorded above 200 g. The chart shows that insects, constrained by how their bodies breathe and support weight, top out at roughly the mass of a small bird.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Wikipedia - List of Largest Insects
- Coverage
- 6 entities · 6 observations
- Measure
- Heaviest Recorded Adult (g)
- Last updated
- 12 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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