The Beetles of 2019

Simply sharing some more of the insects I photographed this year, grouping them by order (or whatever, as the case may be). In this case, order: Coleoptera, the beetles.

I found this elm borer (Saperda tridentata) resting on our front door the morning of May 30. It had no doubt been attracted to our porch light during the previous evening. This is one of the insects that got me in the habit of inspecting the wall and door under the porch light in the mornings!



This species is one of the many longhorn beetles (that’s a family), and it’s in a subfamily called the “flat-faced longhorns.” I think it’s spiffy looking. It lays eggs in cracks of the bark of stressed elm trees, and the larvae feed under the bark, creating squiggly galleries as they go. It can transmit the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease, but it’s not the main vector. Instead, three species of elm bark beetles are the primary vectors; they’re in the weevil family of beetles. We do have some elms in our neighborhood, but since the venerable old American elm that used to stand in front of my mom’s ancestral home was cut down (for no good reason), all that’s left are Siberian elms (“piss elms”) that are past their prime, so pfft, who cares, let the beetles have them, eh?

Seeing that nifty-looking elm borer inspired me to work outside on the patio that morning, keeping my eyes open, and this plain little ol’ click beetle came and visited me. Click beetles are in family Elateridae; I think this one is some kind of Melanotus species, but good lord there are a lot that all look alike!

Click beetles are the ones that, when harassed or worried, play dead. They lay on their backs, legs tucked in, then suddenly: Click! In a split second, they bend their abdomen/thorax segments, making an audible clicking sound, and the sudden click flips them away—somewhere, anywhere away—from the perceived danger.


Click beetle playing dead, just like an opossum, huh?

Then there was the very, very cool Hercules beetle I saw in Virginia on June 10.



We were walking along a strip mall and saw a few women making OHMYGOD gestures; this scarab beetle is very large, and the antlerlike extensions of the exoskeleton make them look formidable. When I picked it up (yeah, I picked it up, thinking “Ah, poor beetle, what are you doing in this lame strip mall place? You need to be in the woods!”), I held it by its sides, and it pressed hard against my fingers with its legs. Very, very strong beetle. What an impressive insect. I set it free in by bro’s backyard, which has a little wooded area near it.

Interesting (and sad) fact about the eastern Hercules beetle: they are declining and may soon be declared threatened: they need certain types of large hardwood trees to complete their life cycle, and ash trees are very important. Now that ash trees throughout North America are threatened by the emerald ash borer, the amazing, fantastic, proud, humble eastern Hercules beetle may also disappear from our continent.

On June 5, I photographed a flea beetle and a darkling beetle in our yard near our house.

The flea beetle was pretty attractive; I think it is species Disonycha procera. This is one of the many colorful and attractive leaf beetles.



The darkling beetle (below) (a Tenebrionid--again, that’s a family of beetles) was one of a bazillion that crawled out of the landscaping mulch along the front of our house one morning when I watered it really well. They all walked up the side of our white-painted house, so they were especially noticeable. They have such dark bodies; as if they were made out of black rubber. There are lots of species of darkling beetles that look more or less the same; I think this is species Alaetrinus minimus.



Then there was a longhorned beetle on our back porch screen on June 20:



This (above) is Acanthoderes quadrigibba, whose name (I figured out) can be translated as the four-humped flat-faced longhorn. There is no common name, even though these beetles aren’t especially uncommon. The larvae feed on rotten wood, so they’re not considered pests.



The dogbane beetle (above) has to be of one of North America’s most beautiful beetles! Another member of the leaf beetle group. We saw this handsome insect resting on a window of the Amtrak station at La Plata, the way we went there to watch trains. See what happens? You embark on your day thinking you’re going to see A, B, and C, and instead (or in addition) you get M, N, and O.

The bonus beetle doesn’t look much like a beetle at all! It looks more like a lizard:



But let’s not forget that most of a beetle’s life is spent looking like a grub, or . . . a teeny tiny lizard. So this is an immature multicolored Asian lady beetle. These are the ladybugs that crawl into little cracks and get into your home in autumn, then buzz around your light fixtures for weeks afterward, and leave squiggly lines of poop on your walls and curtains. Yes, they are from Asia. Yes, they are a nuisance. Many people consider them invasive, but I think it’s still legal to import them and set them loose supposedly to fight against crop pests.

. . . Um, right.

More arthropod pictures soon!