Subject: beautiful clicking beetle in wv
Location: charleston West Virginia
May 20, 2012 8:17 pm
Hey thank you for this website it helped me id this insect I found in my bathroom. Actually my wife found it an she freaked. But thanks again bugman.
Signature: friendly bug enthusiasts
Dear friendly bug enthusiasts,
We are happy our website enabled you to identify your Eyed Elater, a large Click Beetle. When it find find itself on its backs, it is able to snap its body in a manner as to propel the beetle into the air, flipping itself to land on its feet.
I have found those, and they are scary!!!!
haha scary?! no! they’re so beautious! but whatsthatbug, you post so many eyed elaters.
When there are numerous sightings, we like our site to document the populations and distributions.
Found one (or something very like it — dang, why do entities like this show up only in the 10% of the time I don’t have my camera with me?) sitting in the parking lot at East Aurora (NY) High School, 2012 June 23.
Never seen one before, had to come here for an ID. Difference from white-mottled wings shown in photo here — this one looked like it was wearing a black suit with white pinstripes, straight as a ruler, about five stripes running perfectly evenly along the length of each wing. Seemed sick or injured — I flipped it over (it does have a nasty resemblance to a cockroach upside-down), and all it could do was a lot of sit-ups (or ab crunches), couldn’t flip itself upright. I put it back on its feet and left it be.
Does not sound like a Click Beetle if it couldn’t right itself.
Thanks for the reply! Well, you guys are the experts, and I don’t have a photo, so I dunno what else to tell ya. Except for the more pronounced, thin, dull-white striations (sans mottling) along the wings, and that it was more black, not silvery, on the underside, it was in every other respect identical to the one shown in the photo above. It was dreadfully torpid and sluggish (despite nice warm sunny weather), which is why I guessed its inabilty to right itself may have been caused by injury or illness…
Fell from our holly tree in front of me yesterday – we are located in Fairfax, Virginia. Never seen this type of beetle before.
My husband just found one in our back yard in Stafford Va
we found one of these beetles in perry county, indiana ..beautiful! about 1 1/2 inch long.
One fell on me and then to the ground. I thought it was dead until it started clicking in my hand. First time I have ever seen one so I had to google it. Manchester, Mi.