Three May Beetles

2012 November 21

In addition to moths, on May 19, 2012 we had a bunch of “May beetles”[1] come to the light inside our garage. Here is a selection of them.

There were big ones, about an inch long;

And “little” ones, that were “only” a bit over half an inch long.

This isn’t a case of age differences (since all beetles are full adults, and don’t grow anymore once they get their shells and wings), or random variation in size. The two different sizes were clearly different species. Apart from the size, the most striking difference was that the big ones each had a lush, furry vest

while the smaller one had a hairless chest

I think that all three of them are in the genus Phyllophaga[2], a large genus of about 400 species that are mostly only distinguishable by looking closely at their genitalia. Which I did not do. Although if anyone wants to, that BugGuide page linked to just above has lots of pictures of beetle genitals. Anyway, I think I’ll stop at the genus level on these.

All the Phyllophaga have white grubs with dark tails that live underground for up to a couple of years, and eat plant roots (sometimes becoming numerous enough to damage lawns and crops). The adults then typically come out in May and June, where they fly around, mate, maybe nibble a few leaves, blunder into lights/windows/unsuspecting people out for an evening walk, lay eggs, and die.
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[1] In another couple of weeks, they would have been “June Bugs”.

[2] James Thurber proposed the alternative common name “Smackwindow”[2] for these beetles, because that’s what they do when you are sitting inside at night with the light on. It sounds like somebody threw a rock at the window when they do it.

[3] This was an aside in his essay “Do you want to make something of it?” where he was talking about playing the word game “superghost”. He’d proposed a whole list of new words for the specific purpose of making the game more interesting. Of course, this sort of thing rarely works out, because inventing words is way easier than getting other people to use them widely. And people won’t let you get away with using them in word games unless you can get them into general use first. Along those lines, poets sometimes complain about the lack of rhymes for “orange”, “silver”, “purple”, and “month”, but doing something about it would require a broad effort. Something like forming a secret society (the “Rhymes with Orange” Society, maybe) that would create the new words, define them, and surreptitiously drop them into conversations and documents until other people pick up on them.

One Response
  1. November 21, 2012

    I used to see a lot of beetles when we lived in Kuwait but I must admit I never stayed close enough to check their apparel. They made a horrible squishy sound when my bike wheels went over them (accidentally). I personally avoided them as they looked rather like ferocious tanks capable of eating a child.

    The vests you point out on the two beetles —are certainly luxurious but why do they have them? Are they fashion statements? Is it to keep warm? What about in the summer? Aren’t they overheating with such fur in the June months?

    Maybe the fur acts like a broom –and the beetles are sort of sweeping the floor underneath them as they so as a sort of social service to the world?

    I like the extra notes at the bottom of your post although I tend to get muddled after the first note.
    Also, I am very sleepy and grumpy today— and so not very attentive to any other admirable features of this post, but certainly the title was a hook that roused me sufficiently out of my doldrums. I was writing out my blues in a brave fashion –in a post about my impoverished childhood where a bike and bugs like these beetles—- were all I had to liven the days in a bowl of sand in the middle of yet another Petro-state (Kuwait and not Alberta). But I will stop whining here.

    I don’t know how you can keep touching these bugs –it makes me shiver. And then tipping them over so that the FOIP rights of the bugs are disturbed –well that is icky as well.

    And because I am tired I am lost in James Thurber’s essay that you are expounding on in note number 3.
    What the heck are you yapping about here?

    And why put poets into this mess?

    We get blamed for everything.

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