Hello Everyone! Meet my new bug friend, Radar Love ❤️ He must have crashed the wrong party. Radar gone wrong! I found him floating in our pool, in the midst of those raucous “dippers” (the Diplotaxis beetles). Radar Love was so happy I didn’t let him drown, and even happier that I didn’t stick him with a pin and add him to the bug equivalent of a stamp collection. We hung out together for a bit and I took some photos and video to remember him by. Radar Love was released into the forest so he can make more of his kind.
Odonteus obesusOdonteus obesus
Odonteus obesusOdonteus obesus
Odonteus obesus
Location: San Juan Island
ID: Geotruipidae (Odonteus obsesus)
Special thanks to my friend, Michelle Sloan Bos and Tyler Hedlund for ID assistance with this. I was rushing to get ready for my special spider outing. More about that later. For now, enjoy this rare and exciting sighting of a most special little beetle that calls San Juan Island his home.
Yesterday I was the lifeguard. And, I had swimmers needing saving!
Hister Beetle (Genus Margarinotus I believe) – April 7, 2022 San Juan Island, WA
Here’s one of the species I used a piece of cardboard to rescue from drowning. This is a beetle in the family Histeridae, also known as a Clown Beetle. I told him no more clowning around without a life jacket. 🤣 Watch as it wrings its hindwings out, rolling them in under the leathery elytra (the outer wings).
I believe this beetle is in the genus Margarinotus. For ID beyond this, I’d need more time and a lot of patience. However, I can tell you I’ve learned some species of Hister beetles are associated with the nests of rodents, birds, and even ants and termites. They are pest predators, meaning they eat other insects at all life stages. They also are especially adept predators of fly eggs. You can often find them in leaf litter, dung, carrion, and under tree bark, or living in those ant mounds where they may be fed by ants, eat the leftovers the ants discard, or in some cases, they eat the ants!
Some other curious tidbits about these beetles include their acting ability. They play dead (Thanatosis) to deter predators. The word Hister is derived from Latin and means “Actor.”
Hister Beetle (I believe Margarinotus sp) – San Juan Island, WA
Wenzel, R. L. (1960). Three new histerid beetles from the Pacific Northwest, with records and synonymies of additional species (Coleoptera: Histeridae). https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2847194
Bugging You From San Juan Island 