Insects of 2014: Coleoptera

The Beetles! Coleoptera. Beetles are another well known group of insects. They are also the largest of the insect orders, with at least 400,000 species described. Here are some that I ran into in the past year:

This beautiful green beetle is the Fiery Searcher Calosoma scrutator. It is a large ground beetle which hunts other insects. But this one I found out of it's normal setting, in a department store among the clothing aisles. And it wasn't the only one! I saw others of the same kind. They must have hitchhiked on a shipment of something I did my best to inconspicuously "shoplift" the beetle out of the store in my purse but it kept escaping through a hole in the zipper. Once I got it home I was able to snap this photo and find out what it was. Then I let it go in the garden where it hopefully found things to eat.

Alaus oculatus, the Eastern-Eyed Click Beetle was seen sitting on a log on one of my walks. These large click beetles like others in the family Elateridae, have the ability to right themselves by flicking a joint and catapulting themselves into the air.

This Giant Stag Beetle Lucanus elaphus was dead on the side of the road when I found it. I took its picture because I was impressed with its giant size. You can see here an ant had already started to take an interest in it.

This beetle is probably in the Subfamily Dynastinae - the  Rhinoceros Beetles. The females do not have the showy horns that the males possess.

This Banded Net beetle Calopteron reticulatum may look like a moth, but it is actually a beetle.

These are Japanese beetles  Popillia japonica, a notorious garden pest. But these two struck me as quite intriguing as they sat together, almost like they were having a little conversation.

A firefly Photinus sp. hiding out during the day under a leaf.

The Goldenrod Soldier Beetles Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus were all over the flowers on this fall day.