If you don’t think of beetles when you think of pollinators, you’d be missing out on this pretty little beetle, the Delta Scarab. The Delta Scarab beetle, or D-beetle, gets its name from the triangle on its thorax which looks like the greek letter delta. Their coloration is dramatic, and there’s some speculation that it is intended to look like a wasp (in a possible example of Batesian mimicry). And it does look a little like the paper wasps that were foraging on the same plants!
Characteristics of legs and antennae
They have really long, segmented legs that they can stick out to hold on to plant stems or make it look like the antennae of a hornet when approached from behind. But their antennae are what practically made me swoon with cuteness. The antennae are club-shaped, but they can unfold at the ends to create more surface for sensing flowers or potential mates.
Look at these adorable antennae!
As adults, they’ll spend their whole lives on these flowers, eating pollen and nectar and searching for mates.
Friend or Foe
These beetles are harmless: they don’t cause significant damages to crops in their larval stages, and as adults they feed exclusively on the pollen and nectar of flowers, without defoliating leaves or consuming necessary parts of the plant.
Umbel flower specialist
They prefer flowers with umbels (a botanical term for a flower that has many blooms coming from a single stalk, sort of like an upside down umbrella) like Queen Anne’s lace, members of the parsley family, and our native gulfcoast swallowwort. That’s the plant I’ve seen them on most recently: it’s been so dry. Last year they were all over the water parsley.
Delta Flower Scarabs are in the same family as dung beetles
The scarab beetle family has 35,000 species in it, so these beetles have a lot of company. In fact, the dung beetles are scarabs, and this is probably a good time to revisit that beetle, aka the rainbow scarab. (The word scarab means beetle in Latin).
The Egyptian reverence for scarabs comes from the way they roll dung and its similarity to the sun god rolling the sun across the sky, symbolizing immortality. We just like the way they clean up the coyote and otter scat in the roads!
Hopefully you’ll have a chance to get out and spot some of these little beauties! You can learn more about pollinator week here, and if you are on the island, we’ll have some fun activities planned!