Some kind of longhorn beetle?
July 18, 2009
This insect had apparently been attracted to the yard light at the corner of our house. It’s July, in a woodsy area of the Sierra Foothills near Placerville, California. (Lots of ponderosa pine and black oaks, as well as manzanita shrubs.) In my I.D. search I keep coming across the Banded Alder Borer but this is something else. Can you help?
Karen Rathbun
Placerville, California
Acanthocinus principes
Hi Karen,
You are correct that this is not a Banded Alder Borer, but we have had no luck in securing an identification for you. We are nearly certain your beetle is in the subfamily Lamiinae which includes the genus Monochamus. We would seriously consider the White Spotted Sawyer, but the male of the subspecies found in California and Oregon has solid black antenna. We are going to contact Eric Eaton in the hopes that he can assist in an identification.
Acanthocinus principes
Comment from Eric Eaton
Daniel:
I recognize it, but never committed the name to memory because it is not seen that often. I’ll get more of my colleagues to take a look. Nice images that I hope will also get posted to Bugguide:-)
Eric
Okay, I’ve submitted it to BugGuide, and also added one more photo. I’m excited that this one is not common, and now I wish I had not been rushed when taking the photos and had done a proper job of it — including a size reference and finding better lighting and that sort of thing. Or that I had saved the beetle for a proper photo session later. Thanks for your help!
Karen
Update:
July 19,2009
Daniel, thanks for your help! I thought you would like to know that Eric has identified this beetle as Acanthocinus principes – http://bugguide.net/node/view/306477/tree
What fun to be able to provide photos that seem somewhat hard to come by! I just got lucky, as I know next to nothing about insects, though I do own a couple of field guides and like to learn the names of things that I find. I sure appreciate your service, and also Eric’s.
Karen
A friend of mine is inquiring …
July 5, 2009
A friend of mine is inquiring about the name and type of insect this is. After much searching on the internet and books of insects, I am still not able to identify it. Thank you in advance for your help.
Your letter to the bugman This picture was taken outside of a house in Jamaica, West Indies. The insect as unsual antenaes. They look like twigs and are longer in length then the body of the insect.
not sure
Jamaica, West Indies
Unidentified Cerambycid from Jamaica
Dear not sure,
This is some species of Longicorn in the family Cerambycidae. We will try to do additional research.
Update from Eric Eaton
July 20, 2009
Daniel:
The Jamaican longhorn is probably <i>Neoptychodes trilineatus</i>, or at least in that genus, eh? No problem, maan….:-)
Eric
Grapevine Beetle
July 18, 2009
Found this 3 cm-long beetle a few days ago in a patch of clover on my lawn. From your site I determined that it’s a Grapevine Beetle. I have no grapes, but some of the neighbours probably do.
Ray
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Grapevine Beetle
Hi Ray,
Your identification of the Grapevine Beetle, Pelidnota punctata. This species ranges in color from a very pale yellow to a rusty red, but the spots remain a consistent identification feature.
Large beetle in E. Washington state
July 18, 2009
We found this large black/brown/red beetle with reddish legs and a red underside on our driveway on July 18 in Spokane Valley, WA. It was discovered just after dusk. It is 3-4 inches in length. When touched on the back, it would raise it’s back legs to make a scraping/hissing sound. What is it? What does it eat? Are they common in this area (we’ve never seen one before)
Lobdells
Spokane Valley, WA
California Root Borer
Dear Lobdells,
This is a California Root Borer, Prionus californicus. It ranges from Canada to Mexico on the West Coast, as far inland as Nevada and Montana. According to Charles Hogue in Insect of the Los Angeles Basin, the larvae bore into roots of oaks, madrone, cottonwood, fruit trees and eucalyptus. Adults emerge and fly in early summer and are attracted to lights. The beetle is not considered rare, but populations may be very localized. Your specimen looks like a female as males are smaller and have more exaggerated antennae.
Unknown weevil Costa Rica
July 17, 2009
Hi WTB!!
I have a photo of a weevil as my screensaver that looks a lot like the glittery weevil you are having trouble identifying. I took the photo from one of your reader’s website. You can view more photos of the weevil there. Father Sanchez has it listed as Polydrusus and he is located in Puerto Rico. http://www.kingsnake.com/westindian/
Keep up the great work!
Andrea with the anatomically correct butterfly tattoos 
Hollywood, CA
Puerto Rico
Green Immigrant Leaf Weevil
Hi Andrea,
How nice to hear from you again. We have also had email exchanges with Father Sanchez. We love his website. We are linking to BugGuide’s page on the Green Immigrant Leaf Weevil, a European species that has naturalized in North America. Though we are inclined to agree that this weevil and our Costa Rican Weevil look the same, we would really like to get an expert opinion on that. Thanks so much for providing this information.
¶ Posted 17 July 2009 § Weevils ‡ ° Red and black haf inch beetle
June 19, 2009
This little guy has been perplexing me for years. It was about a half inch long, and flew onto the door latch right infront of me. It was slow moving and calm. It had a black head with small flecks of red underneath by the jaws, and the black tapered to a point halfway down the back, leaving the sides of the wings red. I’ve seen a lot of beetles while searching this, that have a similar color pattern, but they are the opposite, with red bodies and black wings. This guy has me stumped.
love the site, keep on buggin
Abi
Upper peninsula MI
Scarlet Malachite Beetle
Hi Abi,
We are trying to catch up on some unanswered emails by skipping around until we find an interesting request. Your beetle is a new one for us, so we did some research on bugGuide. This is a Scarlet Malachite Beetle, Malachius aeneus, one of the Soft-Winged Flower Beetles. BugGuide lists the range as: “across southern Canada and northern United States, south in the east to at least North Carolina, south in the west to Oregon also occurs in Europe, western Asia, and the Middle East introduced to North America (no info available on date or location).” This remark on BugGuide is also quite interesting: “In 2005, Buglife, a UK charitable organization devoted to the conservation of invertebrates, lauched the Scarlet Malachite Beetle Project, requesting members of the general public to report sightings of Malachius aeneus, whose numbers have declined in England in recent years. A number of clubs and groups (examples: 1, 2, 3) have joined the project, which has generated a good response and involvement from the public, and has helped to raise awareness of invertebrate conservation issues in general.”
Unknown beach beetle
July 17, 2009
These beetles were discovered during horseshoe crab spawning season on Pickering Beach, Delaware. I’ve yet to find a good match in any of our bug books. We did collect one that looked very dead, but it crawled inside a crab carcass and hasn’t been seen since. Can you help with an ID?
I’ve been visiting periodically since last July when I identified and observed a grapevine beetle from July through the end of November.
LKStimeling
Pickering Beach, Delaware
Hastate Hide Beetles
Dear LKStimerling,
Were it not for the antennae on the individual on the far left, we would say that these are Carrion Beetles, more specifically, the Northern Carrion Beetle, Thanatophilus lapponicus. BugGuide has several images including some mounted specimens. One photo of a specimen from Alberta Canada is a dead ringer, but for the antennae. The individual in your photo on the far left most certainly has lamellate antennae which Comstock in our 1940 edition on page 41 defines as “the segments that compose the knob are extended on one side into broad plates.” On page 487 of the same volume under the family Silphidae, he writes: “The segments near the tip of the antennae form a compact club, which is neither comblike nor composed of thin movable plates; sometimes the antennae are nearly filiform.” Finding these beetles during the spawning of the horseshoe crab might be significant. Since Carrion Beetles are attracted to putrefying flesh, and since there is probably a bit of carnage during the mating, the presence of Carrion Beetles makes sense. Since we have pretty much decided that this if probably NOT a Northern Carrion Beetle, based on the antennae alone, we are stumped. The lamellate antennae are often found in the Scarabidae, but we aren’t happy with that ID either. We are forwarding this mystery to Eric Eaton to clean up. As a side note, we are thrilled that your photo includes what would seem to be a mating pair in the center, which qualifies this image for our Bug Love page.
Immediate Update
Immediately upon posting we decided to do additional research. We backtracked to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea that includes both Scarab Beetles and Carrion Beetles. There we found the family Trogidae, the Hide Beetles. We found our match, antennae and all, and now we need to try to determine the genus. Our frontrunner is Omorgus scabrosus, based on the drawing of the scutellum by Phil Harpootlian on the family page on BugGuide. That would make this a Hastate Hide Beetle. Since they are found on carrion in the late stages of decomposition, all that we stated earlier regarding the presence at the Horseshoe Crab spawning holds true. Since our archiving taxonomy is sketchy at best, we will be filing this with the Carrion Beetles.
black with checkers and has wings 1.5 inches long
July 16, 2009
Found this bug hanging around the hangar. What is it?
Sorry I don’t want a letter just curious as to the bug is. Thanks
Chesterfield Missouri
Cottonwood Borer
Dear Sorry,
This beautiful beetle is a Cottonwood Borer. Most of our reports come from Oklahoma and Texas.
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