A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Flew up under porch light. Looks like a lot of offspring on the back. Not sure what type of beetle.
N. Georgia porch light.
Spotted on Jun 6, 2014
Submitted on Jun 7, 2014
5 Comments
It looks like Nicrophorus orbicollis covered in phoretic mites. Hard for me to tell about the beetle as it is so covered. Great bug! Thanks for sharing!
Wow! I've seen mites on a lot of different beetles, but never even close to this! That is just crazy. Wonderful spotting JD.
Thanks! I thought they were the offspring, little did I know they were mites. The beetle did not seem to mind that it had so many mites on it. It surprised me how well the mites could hang on after the beetle smacked into the wall a few times.
Those mites eat fly eggs that could harm the beetle when in a carcass great find!
Nice spotting! Possibly a saxton beetle with Gamasid mites. I found a similar situation, only mine had much fewer mites. I wrote a brief description of why the mites are on the beetle if you want to check that out http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/362...