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Post by setzor on Mar 28, 2013 17:49:00 GMT -8
Saw this guy out back a little while ago. Thought he was a june bug at first because he kept smacking against the wall. After closer examination, noticed he had 2 sets of wings like a ladybug, but was much larger and had a lot different markings. I googled "ladybug like beetles" and didn't really find anything that resembles the markings.  |
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Post by setzor on Mar 28, 2013 18:03:09 GMT -8
When I got close, he started to dig himself into the dirt. I proceeded to dig him out with a stick to snatch a photo, and he started making a weird noise as I was doing it.
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Post by bandrow on Mar 28, 2013 18:27:50 GMT -8
Greetings, Your beetle is a species in the genus Bolbocerosoma, in the scarabaeoid family Geotrupidae. There are a number of species, and from your image I can't see all of the characters necessary to accurately ID it to species. However, based on what I can see, it is possibly Bolbocerosoma confusum, with a slight possibility of it being Bolbocerosoma pusillum (if the elytral striae have fine yellow hairs). The noise was the beetle "stridulating" - a defensive mechanism whereby opposing body parts are rubbed together to create the noise, much like crickets create their "chirp". In scarabs, this 'rasp and file' are often on the top of the abdomen and inner surface of the elytron. If you collect more of these, I'd be very happy to give them a good home  Hope this helps! Bandrow |
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