Day 262: I have to admit that I had never spent much time studying bugs until my botany partner Joe began drawing my attention to them. He's keenly interested in the life cycles of butterflies and moths, and therefore likes to check shrubbery when he spots a furled or nibbled leaf. In the course of our adventures, the diverse community of beetles has opened my eyes to a new kind of beauty: those hard-shelled, often colourful individuals who form a vital part of the chain of life.
Many beetles are predatory on other insects. Like Ladybugs, some consume critters which would be otherwise detrimental to plant life (scale, mealybugs, thrips, aphids). Others eat only specific plants or families of plants. Chrysomela confluens (above) is a good example. It feeds solely on alder and willow (a point which helped identify this specimen). Still others consume fungi, and some actually "farm" certain fungal species. Lastly, some maintain a diet of decaying matter or dung which, although a repellent idea from a human perspective, keeps the earth from being buried in waste material. On the flip side, many beetles serve as pollinators, a role for which they are not widely acclaimed.
While the "cute" or imposing members of Clan Beetle get all the press, many less impressive Coleopterae are disappearing from the species census for a variety of reasons, notably the use of wide-range pesticides which affect more than just a target insect. You'd hear about it if the Ladybug population was in decline, but if every Chrysomela on the planet died overnight, the news wouldn't make a one-liner on the bottom of an inside page.
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