No, not those Beatles but there is a link. Supposedly, John Lennon and his best pal Stu Sutcliffe were big fans of Buddy Holly and the Crickets so, they looked for a similar type of name for their band. Eventually, they decided on the Silver Beetles and then just the Beatles, changing the ‘Beat’ part to tie in with the music.
During spring and summer months, you might think you’re seeing a fly whir over your head on the lawn but it could easily have been a beetle exploring your garden.
Beetles, or the order of insects known as Coleoptera, form the biggest animal group on the planet, making up 40% of all insects and representing 25% of all living, breathing things. There are over 360,000 species characterised by a pair of sheathed wings, or ‘armoured’ layer, that surrounds a delicate second pair of functional flying wings beneath.
You might be familiar with ladybirds but there are so many more species in and around your home. Biscuit beetles may infiltrate your cupboards, ground beetles may scamper under your feet, but the ones I want to look at are the colorful soldier beetles that gather on flower heads during the summer months.
One of the first beetles named due to the red colour of their coats, which reminded people of the uniform of the British army, they are harmless to us but really good for your garden. The adults eat aphids, pollen and nectar, appearing more often than not on Hogweed, Daisies, and Ragwort where they spend the summer feeding and mating. They often gather in colourful little clusters.
The larvae live at the bottom of grass stems where they eat snails and slugs so, yet again, good if you want to look after your lettuces or rescue your roses.
The sailor beetle, similar in habits to the soldier beetle, in that it flies over rough grassland hunting for aphids and caterpillars, is less common in Scotland. The beetle shown below is a Grey Sailor Beetle - Cantharis Nigricans, first noted in 1776 by someone with the surname of Müller, may suggest that it was a German sailor’s uniform that gave them the inspiration for its name.
