Thursday, 9 June 2022

CARDINAL

Here's someone clambering through the long grass with no attempt at camouflage. 


He doesn't need it because the bright colouring advertises to birds and other predators that he would not be at all tasty;  quite the opposite in fact.


He is a cardinal beetle (Pyrochroa serraticornis) and is himself a predator on other insects.  He likes a bit of pollen too but the reason he spends time on flowers is to ambush other small insects.

Photo: Alan Watts

The adult beetles are about in May and June but the larvae may live for several years under the bark on fallen wood, feasting on dead bark, dead insects and micro-organisms.

Photo: wikimedia commons






















 

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