Darkling Beetle | Bugging You From San Juan Island

Spring!

Posted on March 27, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island 2 comments

I hope it’s safe to say that Spring has finally arrived in the San Juans. We have enjoyed tiny blips of sunshine the past two afternoons, enough to awaken life in miniature around our home. I’ve found these tiny lives going about business on the “highway” around the top of our above ground pool, crumbled mounds of dirt in hard-packed soil where little mining bees have excavated their way to the surface from a long winter sleep, and a suite of species of flies (our best early spring pollinators) sipping at the miniature chickweed flowers that opened overnight. I’ve also seen my first tiny “sugar” ant in the house, most definitely a harbinger of spring!

In these days where we are likely weary of the many assaults on our souls – from reading that we are at the precipice of mass species extinction to the news reports of fires and other natural disasters (intensifying from climate change), and the horror of what we face watching our nation torn apart and not really knowing what the fateful consequences of unchecked power will be, I hope you will do as I am trying to do…take each day moment by moment, and find some beauty wherever you can. Remember the dandelion that blooms in the crack in the concrete. If you’re reading this, go outside and B-R-E-A-T-H-E.

Yesterday I saw the first Yellow Rumped Warbler of the season. The Violet Green Tree Swallows are going to show up any day now. Go soak yourself in nature while we still have nature around us.

Golden Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria)

I’ll leave you to shadow dance with this happy little Cereal fly on my blue garden chair….💙

Thanks for stopping by!

Cereal Fly (Geomyza tripunctata) shadow dancing

Bill the Beetle, aka Zeke the Greek

Posted on December 29, 2020 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

I thought I’d post about something new I discovered today when reading about the Darkling Beetle species Zophobas morio. These are beetles that some folks will know by the common name for their larval form, Superworms.

First off, the beetle I’ll be using as my representative here is named “Bill.” I discovered Bill one day in my bin of feeder roaches for my Bearded Dragon (Drago). When I first met Bill, he was a weird waxy, mummy-looking mutant lying motionless amongst the frass (roach poo) at the bottom of the plastic bin.

He almost got dumped into the trash, but I gently picked him out recognizing the wax museum-like form as the pupal stage of some sort of bug. It definitely was NOT a roach since roaches have hemimetabolous development. This means their intermediary stages or nymphs, basically look like mini replicas of their adult parents.

Bill didn’t stay red for very long and in fact, the next day he was pretty BLACK. While investigating a bit about the meaning of his scientific or Latin name, I couldn’t find much in the entomological references I checked. I delved a bit deeper and came up with this and thought you might find it interesting.

In Greek, Zophos refers to “black” or “black darkness of the nether world.” Mori refers to “death.”

I think I like the name Bill if he’s going to hang out on my kitchen counter, but maybe for Halloween he can be scary Zeke the Greek, herald of black death of the netherworld.

Bill is also going to be a family member for about as long as Drago. I’m not sure how my husband will feel about this. He asked me when I got Drago how long Bearded Dragons live. I said “about 15 years with good care.” Wow! That means we will be in our 60’s.

Drago was 3 when he came to live with us in March 2020, so if he lives to be 15, I will be the very old age of 68. Well, BILL can live for about the exact same amount of time! FIFTEEN years. That’s right! I read it here -https://sciencing.com/superworm-life-cycle-5347598.html