mediterranean beetle
Location: Andalucia Spain
January 6, 2011 12:27 pm
Hi there are lot of these beetles hibernating under the bark of trees where I live in the south of Spain. Can you tell me what they are please?
Signature: EB
Dear EB,
The only common name we can find for this species, Scantius aegyptius, is also the common name for the entire family they belong to, Pyrrhocoridae, and that common name is Red Bug. This Red Bug is native to the eastern Mediterranean, but in recent years it has been introduced to North America. The UC Riverside Center for Invasive Species Research has a marvelous page devoted to the species first documented in Orange County in Southern California in 2009. According to the site: “The most noticeable impact of S. aegyptius in California will likely be the presence of large numbers of nymphs and adults migrating from drying annual weeds into adjacent developed areas. These migrations consisting of thousands of individuals can be very conspicuous and lead to large aggregations on small patches of host plants causing concern to local residents who notice these obvious aggregations.” The TrekNature website also has a very nice photo of this Red Bug. Red Bugs are not beetles. They are True Bugs in the order Hemiptera.
