A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Buprestidae
A metallic-looking beetle (?) missing its left wing
On a milkweed leaf in a large area of native prairie grasses and very close to fresh water (Lake Blanche)
I found more metallic-looking beetles this year than ever before but that may have simply been the fact that I was searching harder than I had been in previous years for interesting or beautiful insects to photograph and not due to any explosion in numbers, genetic alteration or environmental changes that had occurred.
Spotted on Aug 30, 2013
Submitted on Mar 1, 2014
2 Comments
BugEric-You're an angel; thank you! I think you nailed it. I know. I'm thinking a bird tried to eat it, perhaps? One whole wing appears to be missing but it still got around quite well. Focusing on insects as much as I did this ear I found a lot of injured insects such as a dragonfly with a deflated-looking eye, torn wings, missing wings, etc... Poor guys. :-(
Buprestidae for family, likely a species of Dicerca, but it sure is mangled!