Monday, July 06, 2009

Eyed Click Beetle

While gardening this weekend, a large beetle landed at my feet. It was one of those beetles that you look at and think "my god, I bet that could devour my house and all of my plants". It was about 2" long, slim (rather than a fat stocky beetle) black with white speckles and two large white rings on it's front end.
I took a photo, trapped it under a flower pot, finished my gardening and went inside to try and ID it. I had it under the flower pot on the front step when I thought "if this beetle is just might eat my house maybe I should put him and the flowerpot at the end of the driveway" at least that way he'd have to walk a long way to get to my house.

This was a perfect example of the power of the internet: I googled "black beetle white circles" and found a reference to "Eyed beetle". Then I googled that and got to a great bug ID site: (http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740) and ID'd it as an Eyed Click Beetle. Then I did a little more poking around and found http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-9-1296,00.html. They said the following:
"But the larvae of eyed click beetles tend to leave gardens and lawns alone, preferring instead to prey on the larvae of wood borers (pests that you definitely don't want in your yard). So the next time you see one of these guys, rest assured that it won't harm you or your plants, and let it go along on its merry way."


So I went back outside and released it. I did find one other beetle in the garden this weekend with an orange rear proboscis/willy thing! which I still need to ID. This guy:

1 comment:

kb said...

That other beetle is a Broad Necked Root Borer, I'm sure, the cause of the pitiful state of my Pagoda Dogwood (just next to this hosta he's on). The pointy part is an ovipositor.