Evolution was inordinately fond of beetles. According to the coleopterists, there are some 400,000 species, with many more still to be identified. Beetles are everywhere. Every time I introduce a new plant into my garden, along comes a species of beetle new to me.
Nevertheless, I must admit, to my shame and embarrassment, that I can call only a handful of beetles by name. Is it failure of curiosity, failure to pay attention, failure of memory? As Holmes might have said, I see but I do not observe.
Here are the few I can identify. The pestiferous, omnivorous Japanese beetle, a pest every year and occasionally a veritable plague. The Colorado potato beetle, voracious on potatoes and annoying on eggplants. The extremely stupid box elder but, which comes into the house every fall to die and desiccate. Ladybugs, supposedly eaters of aphids. Lightning bugs, beautiful in the night, helpless by day.The heavy bomber among beetles, the June bug. The rose chafer, early spring consumer and disfigurer of anything white, especially the white flowers of peonies. A variety of oil beetle that hangs out a couple of inches below the surface in good garden soil — what does it do there?
That's about it; all the rest are unidentified and unidentifiable shard-born beetles. OK, off to the library I go to bring home some beetlebooks. This ignorance cannot stand.
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