Mating Fruit Chafers from South Africa

Subject: Yellow Black Beetle – South Africa
Location: 30k west of Bela-Bela, Limpopo, South Africa
December 17, 2013 4:32 am
I would be very grateful if you could identify these beetles. I have not found any other images online which look like this. All the images were taken in November 2013. The third image is the bush the beetles were on. There were about 8 of them and they appeared to be mating.
Signature: David Smith

Dear David,
We tried several times to identify your mating Scarab Beetles in the family Scarabaeidae, but our attempts were not successful.  Based on the positioning of the legs during mating, which resembles the position of Japanese Beetles mating, we suspect they might be in the same subfamily, which is Rutelinae, the Shining Leaf Chafers.  Knowing the plant they were feeding upon might help.  Perhaps one of our readers will have better luck with an identification.

Dear Daniel,
Thanks for the quick reply.
I think you are correct in saying it is Rutelinae, the Shining Leaf Chafers. When I googled that I found these images from Brazil which is obviously the South American version.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/17020905
All the best,
Dave

Karl provides an identification
Hi Daniel and David:
I believe these are Fruit Chafers (Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae) in the genus Anisorrhina. I found two potential candidates, A. sternalis and A. algoensis, and I suspect there may be more. Regards. Karl