Always Check the Unusual

I never pass up the opportunity to examine something that just doesn’t look quite right.  As I was walking through the field, I noticed Field Thistle flower heads showing what seemed to be a central disk.  That is something that should not be.

There was definitely something odd about the center of the flower, but it didn’t appear to be a part of the flower itself.

It seemed to be an animal.  I began to think Japanese Beetle.

Definitely a beetle, but not Japanese.  It was really digging deep into the flowerhead.

It took some poking to get the beetle to back its head out of the flower.  This is a Dark Flower Scarab, Euphoria sepulcralis, a type of Flower Beetle.  These big flower beetles are fun to watch as they wallow around inside a big flower.  They remind me of desert travelers in the old movies who would jump into the oasis pool and whoop around splashing water all over themselves.