Bloody-Nosed Beetle
There’s a Bloody-Nosed Beetle, Timarcha tenebricosa, marching across the field in front of me. They are flightless beetles which struck me as fascinating the very first time I saw one thirty years ago because I was on the island of Anglesey. “How”, I wondered, “did it get there? It can’t have walked onto the island”, I thought. Then I realised that I’d driven onto the island across the bridge, so maybe it had.
I’m here in Italy writing this. Now, it strikes me as odd that a flightless beetle is in the UK. Maybe they walked there across the land bridge that joined us to Europe after the last Ice Age. For that epic journey alone they demand our respect. Bloody-Nosed Beetles; conquering Europe, one beetle at a time.
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