Metallic blue bug
Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:47 PM
Hello WTB,i have been seeing this bug around my town and have no clue what it is. It looks like an ant but has a sort of metallic bue finish on it and is often about an inch to an inch and a half in length. They usually apear in the summer mouths only.
squishworthy
central new jersey

Oil Beetle

Dear squishworthy,
While we don’t feel entirely comfortable with your name and its ramifications, we will nonetheless write back to you to tell you that this is a Blister Beetle in the genus Meloe, commonly called an Oil Beetle.

I see now that the name was a poor choice but a assure you that this bug and the many others that I encounter I do not harm and appreciate their respective services to nature as a whole
Thank you and I hope to have the opportunity to submit to your site again
Steven from jersey
Sent from my iPod

blister beetle (lytta aenea) beseiged by smaller beetles (pedilus terminalus?)
Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 7:07 AM
Hey bugman, I was walking through the woods here at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee and I came upon this blister beetle (id’d courtesy of Eric Eaton and y belov on bugguide) being beseiged by the smaller beetles. According to Eric, the smaller beetles are after the cantharidin that the blister beetle secretes as a defense mechanism. I had never seen this before. Eric said that though this behavior was not unheard of, it was not observed very often. I though i would share a picture with you. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for an amazing website!
Thanks, Michael Davis
Maryville, Tennessee

Blister Beetle and cantharidin hungry Fire Colored Beetles

Hi Michael,
Thanks so much for providing our site with your wonderful documentation of a Blister Beetle and the opportunistic Fire Colored Beetles.  According to Jim McClarin on  BugGuide:  “Male pyrochroid beetles seek out blister beetles, climb onto them and lick off the cantharidin the blister beetles exude. Not only have these beetles developed a resistance to the cantharidin, they use the blistering agent to impress a female of their own species who then mates with them, whereupon most of the cantharidin is transfered to the female in the form of a sperm packet. The eggs the female subsequently lays are coated with cantharidin to protect them from being eaten before they hatch.”  If we ever did something crazy like trying to pursue a degree in Entomology, we believe we would specialize in the family Meloidae as we are constantly fascinated by Blister Beetles and their amazing diversity and complex life cycles.

Unknown beetles mating on wooley sunflower
Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 5:19 PM
Dear Bugman,
I found these beetles mating? on Wooley Sunflower Eriophyllum lanatum 4/20/09 on my hike of the Stevens Trail in Colfax, CA. Can you help me out with id?
Thanks, Cyndi
Sierra Nevada Foothills in Colfax, California

Blister Beetles Mating

Hi Cyndi,
These are Blister Beetles. We believe we found a match on BugGuide to Nemognatha scutellaris which does not have a common name. The three photos posted on BugGuide were taken in early May 2006 in Carrizo Plains National Monument and the beetles were feeding on the pollen of Chaenactis flowers, which like Woolly Sunflower, are in the aster family Asteraceae. According to BugGuide: “Females lay eggs on flowers, larva attach themsleves to bees when they visit flowers and are then carried to bee nests where they eat bee eggs and stored food. “

Update: How annoying is this???
Our time is precious and we never seem to have enough. We cannot answer even a fraction of the email we receive, so we are quite sensitive to SPAM ourselves, however, we would never ever ever think of installing a SPAM blocker that prevented people we write to from responding to us directly. There must be a way that SPAM blocking programs could allow responses from direct communications. We try, in addition to posting our responses, to reply directly to the querant via email, but the response we just received from Cyndi’s computer is a slap in the face. No, we do not have the time to decipher the cryptic letters so that Cyndi can read our response. Here is what we got. Perhaps a few of our readers can tell Cyndi to turn off her SPAM blocker if she wants to hear back from people. “I apologize for this automatic reply to your email. To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.
If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.
Click the link below to fill out the request: (address removed)”

Comment: About Earthlink Spam Blocker
Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Aloha Daniel -
As you can see from my return address, I use Earthlink as my email server.
It has the most specific spam blocker I’ve seen. If your address is not in the server level address book, you get that generic note. The note can be adjusted by the user to make it more personal, but some just let that techno speak be sent out.
I have both this address and the Bugman@whatsthatbug in my server address book for your name.
Sorry that it caused you grief… you’re a sensitive kinda guy. Like many on the planet. If I were in your shoes, I would be repsonse shy if I would see an earthlink address in the inbox.
Thanks for all you do – attached a sunset from Feb. Nice reds from the volcanic activity, huh?
Eliza
PS have juvie argiope on my front porch. No boyfriend yet. She’s got a few more mm to grow, I guess. She managed to make it through the roof tear off, gutter install and roof replacement with out being smushed.

Thanks Eliza, I guess I was so annoyed this morning I needed to vent. I kicked earthlink to the curb years ago, but Time Warner isn’t much better.

Thank you very much for that info.
I really appreciate your time and effort.
Make it an Adventurous April!
Cyndi Brinkhurst

Hi Cyndi,
You probably wouldn’t be so gracious to us is you saw our scathing post when we got your SPAM block message.

Daniel:
Oh, and can I ever empathize with spam blockers that keep you from helping someone! If I go to all the trouble of researching an answer and replying to someone, only to have that effort blocked, I get postively livid!! I don’t bother jumping through the hoops in those cases. That person is just SOL….
Eric

Whats that bug?
Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 1:41 PM
Please identify and/or help me identify the insect in the attached image? I’m thinking some sort of beetle?
what are my options?
mecca ca

Inflated Beetle

Hi Gus,
This is a Desert Spider Beetle in the genus Cysteodemus.  We would further identify it as an Inflated Beetle, Cysteodemus armatus.  This species is found in California, Arizona and Nevada in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts.  You can see more images and read about the fascinating life cycle on BugGuide which indicates the “Larvae have been found in subterranean nests of solitary bees.”  The Inflated Beetle is a Blister Beetle that gets its common name because of the air space under the fused elytra or wing covers.  This air space is thought to act as insulation in the cold desert nights.

Long, bright orange beetle with black wings
Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 4:12 PM
I found a bunch of these orange and black beetles while airsofting in Arizona and I am not exactly sure what they are. They were in large groups in the grassy areas crawling on eachother. Is it a type of desert beetle?
JKAZ
Arizona, United States

Master Blister Beetles

Hi JKAZ,
Every year in the spring, we get numerous inquiries about Blister Beetles, especially from the desert areas of the Southwest. When Blister Beetles appear, it is often in prodigious numbers, and then suddenly, they vanish. This is a Master Blister Beetle, Lytta magister. It is well represented on BugGuide. This is one of the largest of the Blister Beetles. The adults eat foliage, flowers, pollen and fruit, and according the BugGuide: “Larvae live in bee nests.” Some species of Blister Beetles feed on grasshopper eggs. The beetles in the family Meloidae are known as Blister Beetles because they secrete hemolymph (blood) from their joints when handled, and the hemolymph contains cantharidin which can cause blisters. A European relative is the infamous Spanish Fly. Congratulations on having your letter and image chosen as our Bug of the Month for April 2009.

clerid beetle from greece
Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 9:58 AM
i found this guy in Therbenoxoria,greece,at the village called Prasino.
it was found on a plant on a rocky hill during the day. Any possible ID’s?
thanks,LEO
Therbenoxoria, Prasino village, Greece

Unknown Checkered Beetle from Greece

Hi Leo,
We are afraid we need to wait for some specialist in Checkered Beetles to provide you with a species or genus name on your specimen. We will also attempt to post your other letters, but we have a limited amount of time that we may spend on postings.

Daniel:
The “checkered beetle from Greece” is actually a blister beetle, family Meloidae.
I’ll see if I can’t get some more specifics for the Grecian beetles in general for you…
Eric Eaton

Daniel:
It does look like a blister beetle, probably in the Genus Mylabris . There are a number of European and Near East species that look like possibilities, but the closest appears to be M. quadripunctata. Regards.
Karl