The different kinds of beetles

In North America more than 22,000 different beetles are found of most different sorts.

In North America more than 22,000 different beetles are found of many different sorts. Among the best-known kinds are: The brightly colored tiger beetles, wnich run about on paths on summer evenings, and whose larva waits at the mouth of its hole to catch passing insects. The water beetles, some of them very large, with a larva that may eat fish; others such as the whirligigs and the little black water beetles, quite small. The brightly spotted ladybirds, which are nearly all very useful. The shining, metallic-colored leaf beetles, including the asparagus beetle and the yellow-and-black Colorado potato beetle, which are enemies of man. The black-and-red, or black-and-orange, burying beetles, and the black carrion beetles.

The scarlet, or scarlet-and-black, cardinal beetles. The fireflies, whose females are often wingless, called glowworms. The deathwatch, bark, and powderpost beetles, which destroy wood. The scarabs or chafers, including the sacred beetles of ancient Egypt, the goliath, unicorn, rhinoceros, and ox beetles, the tumblebugs, the figeater, the June bugs, the hairy, yellow-brown rose chafer, and the green-gold Japanese beetle, most of which are enemies of man, because their young eat plant roots. The fierce-looking stag beetle, whose larva lives in decaying wood. The click beetle, which can jump into the air with a "click" if it is lying on its back, and whose larva, called a "wireworm," is a great destroyer of root crops.

The rove beetles, or devil's-coachhorses, which have very short outer wings, and which are mostly useful, living as scavengers in decaying matter; or which sometimes lead strange lives in ants' or termites' nests. The oil, or blister, beetles, some of which are used in medicine. The weevils, with their long-beaked heads, which are some of man's worst enemies. The black beetle of cellars (not to be confused with the cockroach), whose larva is the destructive "mealworm." The longicorn, with its tremendously long feelers, whose larva tunnels in wood; and the beautiful, metallic Buprestis, whose outer wings are used by native women as jewels.

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