![]() Their larvae appear after eggs are deposited on dead or dying food trees and they make lengthy burrows through the soft wood, leaving distinctive holes when they emerge. They feed on sap from host trees of nine different families. Harlequin Beetles have an extensive range that extends from Mexico to Argentina. One afternoon as I approached the plaza my eyes locked on an amazing sight. Clear across the park, grasping the white stucco wall of the bank and starkly visible like a Rorschach inkblot was a male Harlequin Beetle ( Acrocinus longimanus). Unmistakable owing to the exceptionally long forelegs used to prevent competing males from entering egg-laying zones, this was the iconic insect that inspired the great Amazonian naturalist Henry Walter Bates…and it really inspired me! The common name stems from the dorsal pattern, which provides camouflage in situ on trees but otherwise looks like a stunning African tapestry. It has been suggested that the designs can be found on some shields once used by indigenous groups in South America. We lived in a flophouse near the central plaza while we looked for a place to rent and I walked daily to and from the biological institute where I worked. Gateway to the sprawling Llanos Orientales of eastern Colombia, Villavicencio was often referred to as “east of the Andes and west of nowhere.” My wife Nancy and I landed in Villavicencio, a bustling cow town nestled against the rugged Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. The names alone provoked soaring flights of fancy: Titanic- and Metallic Longhorns, Imperious- and Giant-jawed Sawyers, Harlequin Beetles, and the Horned Scarabs…Rhinoceros Beetles and Hercules Beetles. Wow! What were they like? I had to see these for myself. And I got my chance when I took a position in Colombia working with the Smithsonian Environmental Program. While I was in awe of Africa’s robust and colorful Scarabeids, the Goliath Beetles ( Goliathus species), and Southeast Asia’s impressive Atlas Beetles ( Chalcosoma atlas), it was Latin America’s offerings that really drew me in. That’s when I began to read about some of the world’s tropical beetle specialties. Finding my first adult male Giant Stag Beetle ( Lucanus elaphus) got me interested in jaws, pincers, and instruments of damage and destruction. This was before useful works by Arnett et al. ![]() I found Longhorn Beetles and other oddities that sent me digging in the library for what little literature was available in order to identify them. Sure enough, it brought in a lively assortment of moths by night, but beetles came as well. I collected moths and butterflies, so I used to paint trees with a mixture of sugar, rum, and stale beer as an attractant. Elaters, Blister Beetles, Carrion Beetles, Weevils, Dung Beetles, and more…all of them interested me. ![]() My fascination with beetles kept me entertained throughout my youth I read and learned a lot about the species North America had to offer. ![]() With this stunning acquisition I had moved up the size scale past the 2-inch marker plus the gorgeous creature in my hand was mottled like some sort of an exotic African ungulate. The following morning while my parents loaded the car, I wandered the premises and there by the swimming pool, big as a hen egg and resting on the cement was an Eastern Hercules Beetle ( Dynastes tityus). Doubtless the lights had lured it in the previous evening. During a family trip somewhere in the eastern US we spent the night in one of the myriad roadside motels that dotted the nation in the 1950s. Shortly thereafter I scored a real prize. Beetle-juiced.Īnd we all know that leads to… Beetlemania! And it talked to me! So, I was obsessed…juiced, actually. The signals cover courtship, aggression, disturbance, and more no other arthropod bears such a repertoire. But I knew none of this because I was five years old. To me it was an enormous beetle-a “Bessbug”-that made squeaking noises when I excitedly picked it up. Today, with my hearing compromised from having spent my college years chauffeuring rock stars to concerts, the sounds are barely audible. But back then it was amazing music to my young ears. It measured barely an inch and a half in length but I thought I had something worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records. It was robotic and other-worldly, yet alive. Gleaming in the sunlight like polished obsidian, the creature resembled an ATV as it lumbered onto the pavement. It was a Passalid aptly named a Patent-leather Beetle ( Odontotaenius disjunctus) crossing the sidewalk in front of my house. And it was capable of making over a dozen distinctive sounds by chafing the hindwings against the abdomen. In fact, both adults and larvae make these sounds and they react distinctly to them. ![]()
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