#spang beetle

[aswarmofbisexualbees]

Important question

What do you call this bug?

Cockchafer

Bummler

Cob-worm

Kittywitch

Midsummer dor

Oak-wib

Snartlegog

Spang beetle

Billy witch

May-bittle

Humbuz

OP, you forgot about....

Voting ended onMar 30, 2024

[catalogue34-blog]

Cockchafer flybys.

While I was watering our Christmas tree, William Tree Riker, in the garden, I heard an ancient machine clockworking its way through the air past my head. It sounded too... robust to be a dragonfly, and it was dusk, so no sun left to power them. It sounded too... large to be a bee, like I could hear the workings of each individual hand-crafted joint. It buzzed in the clematis, making an intriguing trapped miniature drone-like sound, until it suddenly emerged into the low light above my head. 

Ochre yellow, as far as I could make out, with a fat little bod and squarish wing case extended. A Common Cockchafer. Also known, marvellously, as a Spang Beetle or a Billy Witch. Oh yes, I’ll take that as some #30dayswild learning and no mistake. Here’s to many more Spang Beetles Billy Witching my clematis in the garden.

That’s what she said.

[inothernews]

THAT'S MY NAME, FOOL   A cockchafer - a.k.a. may bug, billy witch or spang beetle - sits on a daisy in Fuerstenwalde, Germany. Pesticides nearly wiped out the species in Europe in the mid-20th century.  (Photo: Patrick Pleul / AFP-Getty via the San Francisco Chronicle)

I'm sure it's not pronounced the way we think it is, but... cockchafer.