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.
