I was outside killing a hornets nest when I looked down and saw a lovely specimen of calosoma scrutator. I’d never seen one before, and was somewhat baffled by it. My initial guess was that it was some kind of beetle larva, given that it had six legs but no wings. I wasn’t sure, though.
I brought it inside for L to see… She was impressed, but more interested in making a house for it than identifying it. I took it upstairs and tried to take a few macro shots of it, but the bugger moved around so much that getting any good detail was difficult. I gave up after a while and let the beastie have its freedom (away from the now-dead hornets nest).
After L’s bedtime, I did some wandering through the entomology section of Wikipedia, and while fascinating (did you know that Wood Lice (aka pill bugs, roly-polys, doodlebugs, etc.) are land-adapted crustaceans?), I wasn’t able to identify my critter. I was able to narrow down my search to beetles, however. Under Hexapoda, there are only two major classes, and I knew my bug wasn’t in Entognatha (weirdos). Drilling down into Insecta, I looked at Archeognatha, because they’re wingless. My bug didn’t have the distinct three-pronged tails that those guys do (think jumping silverfish). Definitely not Thysanura (non-jumping silverfish).
I started looking at the sub-clades of Neoptera, because the other stuff seemed too weird. The only thing that seemed to fit was Coleoptera (beetles), but this didn’t feel right because my bug didn’t have wings. Then I read about how some female beetles retain their larval form into adulthood, and this made me remember what female lighting bugs look like, and my earlier guess. OK, so I knew it was a beetle larva, but didn’t know what kind of beetle.
After a lot of digging, I came across an entry on whatsthatbug.com, and there it was. That’s an awesome site. Excitement abounds. Anyhow, here’s a picture of one of the gruesome monster’s kin. Apparently these things are very good for taking out infestations of things like gypsy moth caterpillars. I’m glad I let it go.
