Green Beetle
I caught this little critter on the fence last October. The fence is vinyl, and it should be smooth, but I had just bought my first grass trimmer the week before and the fence was completely bespeckled with the copious detritus of my gleeful yard devastation. Man that was fun. It’s electric, but it’s got like a half-horse motor on it so when it goes, man it goes. None of that sissy “can’t cut through the tough grass” for me, no sirree. This baby takes out half-inch tumbleweeds with barely a pause.
What’s that? Oh yeah, the bug. I have no idea what it is. Some kind of green thing. Maybe a beetle. You got any ideas?
The grass trimmer has a curved neck on it, supposed to make it ergonomic but I dunno. Half an hour of trimming and there’s no way you’re getting out of a sore back, I know that much. But worth it. Lots of fun, and totally manly, so nobody can make fun of you for being a sissy about it later, you know?
Right, right, the bug. One thing the beetle did that I found interesting was land on the fence and sit still, all folded up for several minutes, and then start unfolding and refolding its wings. I caught this photo here in mid-refold. If you look closely, it looks like it only has four legs. This is because the back legs are tucked up under the shell, shuffling and scraping around the wing surfaces.
Why does it do that, I wonder? Is it cleaning its wings, or perhaps refolding them? Is it trying to dislodge mites the camera cannot see?
Maybe it’s trying to get dead grass out of its shell. Man that stuff was everywhere. That trimmer shoots shattered grass stalks six feet up, easy. Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table and stare out at the yard and make little “brrzzzmmmm…brzzzip!” noises. I wish I could use the trimmer on the snow. That would rock.
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
John Gilmore said,
February 20, 2008 @ 8:20 am
I’ve seen beetles do that too. It’s cool to watch, and I’ve always assumed that their cleaning their wings, but I really don’t know.
I hear you about the electric weed trimmer. I’ve always had a love/hate thing going on with electric yard tools. On the one hand, zero maintenance! And often plenty of power! And did I mention zero maintenance? And no putting gas in it, or trying to get it to start, or cleaning out the air filter, or changing the oil, etc.
On the other, there’s always that cord, you have to be careful not to run over it with your electric lawn mower, and it only goes so far. Of course, unless you’re on a 1 acre lot or something, range isn’t usually a problem. And then you should probably have a tractor or something anyway, right?
Electric lawn mowers can often be a little underpowered though. I mean, 1/2 horse is great and all, but a lawn mower is usually 3 horses or so, and a powerful lawnmower would be 6 to 10, and an electric motor has a hard time producing that much power with that measly thin little cord that’s 50′ long. I think it could be overcome though! Just get a transformer to step up the voltage over the extension cord to 500 volts or so. I’d say 1kv, but then you’d probably need a specialized high-voltage cord, and I’m pretty sure that a standard extension cord could take 500 volts. And then you’d have 1/5 the power drop over the cord. And when it gets to the mower you can step it back down, probably to 240v to drive a more powerful motor on the lawnmower.
Just don’t run over that cord!
M said,
February 20, 2008 @ 8:36 am
I think that they’re re-folding their wings; I’ve seen other beetles go through this whole long routine to get their wings back under the shell casing before. Kind of like arthropod origami.
JFargo said,
February 20, 2008 @ 9:21 am
That sounds like a nice electric trimmer. We gave ours to some friends of ours that hate us now that they found out it doesn’t cut through the toughest of grasses, and only lightly slaps them on the wrist as though they were penalizing an elementary school child for chewing bubble gum.
I love bubble gum. It’s not a food, and not quite a past-time, but you chew it, it tastes good, and you can amuse people by making HUGE bubbles, the size of your head! I mean, come on! What other food-like-thing are you encouraged to play with? Seriously, it’s awesome! AND I hear they make a part of it out of seaweed, so it’s got that “weird ingredient” thing going for it too! Just, cool.
Neat bug picture, very pretty, but right now I’m realizing I haven’t had bubble gum in something like 5 or 6 years. That and I’m glad I have a gas-powered yard trimmer that the owners of the house we’re buying are leaving for me. Sure, gas is expensive, but it’ll get the job done.
tceisele said,
February 20, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
It looks quite a bit like Calleida punctata, except that it doesn’t seem to have dark-colored knees. How long would you say he was?
Personally, I like using a scythe instead of a weed-wacker, but it can be hard to find a good one, and I suppose that they don’t really work that well in tight spaces. Very satisfying on stands of burdock, though.