Island Scarabs are connected to the earlier Island Gems of lentoid or amygdaloid shape by virtue of the local material from which they are made, a soft green or yellow serpentine, but they are later in date. The subjects on Island Scarabs are the same as those seen on contemporary hardstone gems, but due to the softness of the stone, they were cut by hand without the use of a drill.

Only a little more than twenty Island Scarabs are known (see pp. 115-119 in Boardman, Archaic Greek Gems). Three of them are signed by the artist Onesimos, and other gems, including the present example, can be attributed to him on account of the similarity of the style of the engraving and of the form of the beetle. One of the gems signed by Onesimos depicts a cow and her calf, which displays similar anatomical details to the kneeling bull on the present example (Boardman, Archaic Greek Gems, no. 348). Here, the bull is enclosed by a hatched border. Boardman and Wagner suggest that it is possibly Euboean, while Sangiorgi notes that it came from Taranto.