Bug Love
August 31, 2009
I thought you might like a photo of some margined leatherwing beetles in the mating act.
Doug
near Omaha NE

Mating Goldenrod Soldier Beetles

Dear Doug,
Thanks for sending us your Bug Love image, but we don’t believe these are Margined Leatherwings.  That species, according to BugGuide, is “Very similar to C. pennsylvanicus, but pronotum has wide dark band, instead of an irregular dark spot. Elytra of C. marginatus often more extensively dark than pennsylvanicus. C. marginatus is also somewhat smaller and is active earlier in summer than C. pennsylvanicus.“ In our opinion, your photo depicts mating Goldenrod Soldier Beetles or Pennsylvania Leatherwings, Chauliognathus pensylvanicus.  Compare your image to the images posted on BugGuide.

Firefly impostor
June 13, 2009
A few weeks ago I noticed many insects that look very similar to fireflies. The body is black and head has red/orange markings. They seemed to appear all on the same day and now we have hundreds around the house. We have never noticed them (at least in this quantity) before. Any idea?
Bugged Out
Philadelphia suburbs

Black Firefly

Dear Bugged Out,
We are trying to answer some older mail we didn’t open in the past month.  This is a species of Soldier Beetle, Rhaxonycha carolinus.  BugGuide has some additional information on the species.

Correction
Tuesday, 14 July, 2009
I don’t know, this looks more like Lucidota atra, a diurnal species with reduced light organs, but a true firefly.  Have a look: http://bugguide.net/node/view/5361
clickbeetle

Intruder Alert!
Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:51 PM
I found this guy skulking alone on my living room ceiling this evening. It was a very warm day out today, one of the warmest so far this year in Portland, Oregon.
I don’t recognize him, nor to any of my friends.
For the moment, I have him in a holding cell. If he turns out to be a harmless bug, I’ll just release him in the back yard and let him go on his way. If he’s one of those destructive pests, with other friends hiding out in the woodwork (so to speak), he will face summary execution.
So, can you identify this invader?
Paranoid Portland Home Owner
Portland, Oregon

Soldier Beetle

Dear PPHO,
This is a species of Soldier Beetle.  According to BugGuide, Soldier Beetle:  “Adults eat nectar, pollen and in some cases other insects, particularly aphids. Larvae are generally carnivorous and feed on small soft-bodied insects.  A few species feed on plant material such as grains potatoes and celery.   “We believe it is in the genus Cantharis which may be viewed on BugGuide.  The species Cantharis fidelis, which is reported from Oregon, looks quite similar to your beetle.  Soldier Beetles are often attracted to lights, which could explain the presence in your living room.  You may release your captive as it will not harm you nor your home.

Mating Orange Beetles
Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 12:17 AM
Many of these beetles were mating this fall amongst the wildflowers here in Colorado Springs.
Nick DeBarmore
Colorado Springs, CO

Dear Nick,
These are some species of Soldier Beetle or Leatherwing from the genus Chauliognathus.  There is a very common eastern species, Chauliognathus pensylvanicus, the Goldenrod Soldier Beetle, but according to BugGuide, there have been no reports from Colorado.  There are several species that have been reported from Colorado, but exact species identification is difficult due to your camera angle.  Were we to hazard a guess, we would say these are most likely  Colorado Soldier Beetles, Chauliognathus basalis, but the distinguishing features according to BugGuide:  “head, antennae, legs black; pronotum and elytra reddish-orange; pronotum with semicircular or U-shaped black mark on posterior half; elytra with triangular black patch at base and rectangular black patch at tip color of elytra is apparently variable (polymorphic) and is the subject of research papers ” are not visible in your image.  As a general note on the excellent macro photographs you have sent to us for identification:  images showing only the specimens’ heads makes identification very difficult for us.  We would request that you only send images of the entire insect in question for identification purposes.

Update
August 10, 2009
This copulating pair of soldier beetles is most likely C. pennsylvanicus and not C. basalis.  The color and elytral markings are much more consistent with that of C. pennsylvanicus and do not resemble those of C. basalis.  See the image from the Mating Pennsylvania Leatherwings post of Dec. 16, 2006 and you will see that these two images represent the same beetle species.  I grew up collecting copulating C. pennsulvanicus from wild sunflowers in SD and have seen thousands of them.
snethen