More Beetles (and their larvae) In the Backyard

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.

Like other beetles from the the Carabidae (or ground beetle) family, they don't fly.  But, they do eat insects from your yard. 

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.

Summer Fun Day 36 - Taking Time to Be Thankful

 This week we're thankful for...

...slugs and bugs in the berries.

Okay, I admit "thankful" might be a bit strong...

...but what a great reminder of the words of  "the preacher"...

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other  Ecclesiastes 7:14a ESV

Convergent Ladybug Cookies

For the last three or four years, we've celebrated the spotting our first spring ladybug, with a batch of ladybug cookies (from Gretchen Cooks).

We take a batch of sugar cookie dough and divide it into thirds.

We add red food coloring (it takes a lot if you want red, rather than pink) to two thirds of the dough, and a tablespoon of baker's chocolate with five or six drops of black food coloring to the remaining third.

Then, the children roll large (about 2 inch) balls of red dough for the bodies, and small (1 inch) balls of black dough for the heads.

This year, we decided to be slightly more scientific and add small heads in the front of the 1 inch balls, which aren't heads at all, but rather a protective shell, called the pronotum.

I used a sharp knife to split the wings, or really the elytra - the hard shell covering, that protects the wings.

The children added chocolate chips "spots" in a semetrical pattern to each elytra (ladybug spots are always semetrical - as far as I've read, and seen).

Since the first ladybug we saw this season was a convergent ladybug, we gave our cookie beetles 13 spots, with three mini chocolate chips...

...and three regular chocolate chips, on each side...

...and one right in middle (the number of spots for convergent ladybugs can vary, but 13 is typical).

After we baked our cookies (13 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit), we used melted white chocolate chips to pipe a few additional, identifying details onto the pronotums...

...and heads of each beetle.

We should have made the elytra a little more elongated, into ovals instead of balls, and the lines we have on the ladybug's heads aren't quite right, but it's the two slanted lines on the pronotum, that are usually used to identify this variety of ladybug, anyway.

Convergent ladybugs are natives to North America, but according to Cornell University's Lost Ladybug Project, they are becoming rare in the eastern United States.

In the winter these ladybugs will aggregate, or swarm together, on mountain tops, making them easy pickings for bears, who don't mind their bitter taste, and commercial harvesters, who gather them from the wild to sell to garden centers across the country.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Linked with Science Sunday at Adventure's in Mommydom.

Larva to Pupa, Pupa to Ladybug

All this week, we've been watching as ladybug larvae morphed into pupae (you can click the photos to make them bigger).


And, after a good deal of waiting, and watching, we were finally rewarded, yesterday, with the sight of a ladybug struggling to emerge from the pupa stage.



We watched for quite a while, as it struggled around on the leaf, working in a circular pattern, from where the tail end of the shell was secured down.





By bedtime, it seemed to be resting, too.


This morning, all that remained, on the leaf, was an empty shell. The ladybug was nowhere to be seen, but it was chilly out, and most of the ladybugs, on the tree, were snuggled down under leaves, so it's possible it was nearby, but out of sight.


It's great to be a homeschooler.