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| European Ground Beetle - Wikipedia |
No, the freaky bug at the top of this post is not an escapee from Ceti Alpha V...
...but just the larva (think caterpillar) of a harmless, and helpful, European immigrant - Carabus nemoralis or the common, European Ground Beetle.
This guy is from our backyard.
We've spotted several larvae around the house, too (the latest was in our utility room). I don't have any pictures to show you though (thus the Wikipedia shot at the top). I was too busy smashing them (before I knew what they were) to stop and take any pictures, because I have seen Wrath of Khan, after all.
Now that we know what they are though, we'll be implementing a capture and release program for any others we find in the house. With more than 40,000 ground beetles worldwide, 2,000 residing in the US (and even more in Europe), you're bound to run into one or two, this summer, too.
If you're interested in knowing more about them, you might want to check out:
BioKIDs Critter Catalogue,
the Ground Beetle page from Bumblebee.org (a lot of very good information, here),
or watch the short videos from the ground beetle page of BBC Nature Wildlife site.
4 comments:
Ewww.... I wouldn't want to meet them inside the house. At least they are useful!
Ok, I'll just pretend I read this post because I got to the reference of Ceti Alpha 5 and the picture of Chekov and just scrolled on down because I'm going to have nightmares now. That movie gave me serious nightmares as a kid. I have very clear memories of running out of the room as we watched that movie.
Yuck, ok, I'm going to go watch FB videos of puppies now. Lots of puppies.
This is interesting. I'm not sure I should be admitting this but I didn't know that the ground beetle had a larval stage and absolutely didn't know it looked like that. I really need to reignite our nature studies. We've been a bit lax lately (hence my lack of knowledge...)
I'm glad they are helpful, but I still would not be thrilled to find them in my house...
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