One of the interesting things about keeping a blog is it has caused me to ask questions that I normally would not ask.  The following came up with another similar specimen that I found over the weekend.

After looking at these pictures, I had the following questions.

1. Why did I find this beetle just now?  They are not common during other parts of the year.  Are they common during just a small part of the year?
2. This specimen looks a bit different than the other one.  It is slightly reddish while the other one is more pitch black.
3. It also did not raise its tail as a threat, but instead ran away quickly.  There were also several of them instead of just a single one as I found before.  It certainly seemed more docile than the other one.

I’m not sure if I have a perfect answer for these questions, but I did a little bit of research and have some ideas.

My suspicions are that this is a different species of rove beetle from the one I found earlier.  The characteristics of it just seem a bit too different.

In some respects, I am a bit upset at myself for not getting some more shots of it.  They were very determined to get away from me and there were so many interesting things to shoot that day that I just let it have its way and moved on to other subjects.  Now that I suspect that it is a different beetle it would have been nice to have some better shots.

I looked in my books and found an interesting beetle called Nodobius cephalus.  My book (Insects their Natural History and Diversity) calles them “flexible hunters that seek bark beetle prey under bark and in their galleries”.

As I found these beetles under a bag of gravel, it certainly is a possibility.  Of course, this book only covers eastern insects so I’m not sure if it is common on the west coast.  More likely, it is a different species as one can see from this page full of different rove beetles.  Interestingly, I went through the slide show and noticed that they are all from New England, so it is likely that this one isn’t in the list.

Still, I learned something today and find it interesting how this blog has caused me to ask questions I would have otherwise never thought about.

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Contrast this to identifying anthropods.  I’m not exactly sure how many anthropod species have been identified.  However, there are currently 900,000 known species of insects, which are a subset of anthropods.  Just in Washington State, over 700 species of spiders have been identified.  Even today new species are occasionally found here.  Therefore, it can be very tricky identifying whatever I find.  This specimen currently perplexes me.

I took this picture by the ponds near my office.  Several days before I took some other shots of it.

When I blogged about it, Myrmecos mentioned that it might be the larva of a rove beetle.  Based on some research on the web, I think this is the closest match.  Here’s the closest shot I could find.  Notice that the double tails are very similar – with very similar spikes.  While this larva is obviously not the same one in the picture, it appears that his is some type of rove beetle larva.  Perhaps this species only exists in this part of the country and therefore there is little literature on it.

I hope in the near future to make contact with some local entomologists who may have a better idea, but for now I am happy that I have a general idea what this may be.

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At first I thought it was a type of earwig as they look somewhat similar.

This dead earwig was found in our house and was the first insect I ever shot with my then new MP-E 65.

However, all earwigs that I had seen had the typical red head and longer pincers on the end. I was a bit puzzled what this bug was. Even more peculiar was how it raised its tail as if it were a scorpion. Initially, I really thought it meant to sting me, though I doubted that it had the capacity. Here’s a closer look at it.

So I posted the pictures on a forum where there are people more knowledgeable about insects than I, and I found out that this is a type of rove beetle called the “Devils’ Coach Horse Beetle”. I felt that was a rather odd name for a beetle, so I decided to do some research. Wikipedia actually had an article about it and I found out some fascinating information.

1. The beetle originates from the British Isles, where it is the largest beetle found. It has migrated and become more common in North America but it is not native to our continent.
2. It received its name because it eats carrion and in medieval times people believed the devil would take the form of this bug to eat sinners.
3. As I thought, it does not have the capacity to sting you. However, it supposedly can bite you and inflict pain. Generally I do not pick up bugs with my bare hands though, so there was little worry of that happening. Supposedly carpenter ants can bite too, and I have photographed tons of them from mere millimeters and never have I been bitten.
4. They are natural predators of slugs and snails, so it is not too bad to have them around. Unfortunately they also eat earthworms, which I would much rather they leave alone.

This final photo was the closest I got. Knowing that I had some decent photos, I then let the beetle get back to its business.

Certainly since beginning insect photography I have learned quite a bit. There are a number of others species out there that I have no clue about, but with each new critter I unearth I learn a little bit more.

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