Nature’s acrobatic beetle

E-mail is a splendid way to transmit information; it provides the opportunity for communicating in detail when the situation calls for it, like this e-mail Conrad Weiler and I exchanged recently:

Hi Jim,

Joanie and I were walking in the forest near the intersection of Highway 20 and the Camp Sherman Road (14) when she found the attached critter on her skirt. We’re wondering if you might know what it is? It was about 1.5 inches in length with prominent black eyes.

I’m feeling better...

Best wishes,

Conrad

The part about the beetle being “attached to Joanie’s skirt” brought an image to my mind of Joanie being eaten by the beetle and I couldn’t help myself, so this was my response…

My Dear Conrad and Joanie,

Oh my… Gee whiz… You poor people! I hope this note finds you healing well. I see at the end of your note about the bug that you are (were) doing better — before you met up with that “bug,” which is not a “bug” at all, but the mother of all aggressive beetles!

I have to tell you — or perhaps you already know because of your injuries — that beast you photographed is the infamous, feared, denizen of the Dark Side of Central Oregon, the terrifying “Eyed Joanie-eating beetle!”

Now you may think this is all nonsense… Well… it is!

Keep improving, Old Scout. You are a Good Man.

Oh, if you met up with another such beetle, try fighting it off with the rusty hulk of a PC…

Jim

Let me tell you a little more about Click Beetles…

First, their biological classification: Click Beetles are classified in the Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Coleoptera, Family Elateridae, and sometimes know as the Elater Beetle.

And from the dictionary: Click beetle (noun): Any of various beetles of the family Elateridae, characterized by the ability to right themselves from an overturned position by flipping into the air with a clicking sound. Also called snapping beetle.

You will note that at the end of the common name of the beautiful click beetle photo Conrad sent I have put the genus name in italics with “spp” behind it. That denotes that I have no idea of the species. There are so many click beetles that to know what species Conrad’s beetle is I would have to ask an entomologist “key” with which I could get to the species name.

You would never recognize a click beetle when it is in the immature part of its life cycle. Like most insects that go through what is know as metamorphosis, i.e. egg, larva to adult, they do not resemble what they will be as adults.

Beautiful butterflies start life as a tiny pill-shaped egg which hatches into a slug-like thing called a caterpillar, most of which are ugly as a board fence, which in turn go into a chrysalis that can resemble anything from a twig to a rock or bird poop and then eventually burst forth as the magnificent animal we know as the Swallow Tail Butterfly.

Click beetles start out in life as a “wire worm.” Many of them are despised by gardeners as they find the inch long yellow-orange hard bodied “worms” eating the roots of their favorite plants.

Wait! Don’t grab the insecticides! We do not have that many of them and wire worms will not cause much damage to your garden.

Some wire worms are predators, known to devour wood-boring beetle larva.

How does the click beetle “click?” That is really a neat part of the beetle’s anatomy. The click beetle has a hinge across the front of the body that allows it to flex, and a spine-and-groove arrangement on the underside of the body, between thorax and abdomen, that provides a snapping mechanism.

When said beetle is on its back, it cannot right itself by rolling over because of its short legs. To get the job done, it arches its body so that only the ends touch the ground, then straightens suddenly, causing the spine to slide into the groove. This produces a loud click and the beetle goes spinning through the air, sometimes to about a foot above the surface. Hence another name for these snappy insects: Acrobatic beetles.