Something small and bright caught my eye. Stopping mid-stride and mid-conversation, I bent down to look at a small jumble of legs and exoskeletons in the tread of the Ice Age Trail. Luckily, my hiking buddy was also a naturalist, and she investigated the insects with me.
The yellow mantle behind the head of a black carrion beetle is what I’d noticed first. They are quite striking, even when rooting around in the decaying flesh of a recently dead animal, looking for a place to lay their eggs. The adults eat dead stuff, too, hence the bear hug this one was giving a shiny brown, but unmoving, carcass of a Junebug. I snapped a couple photos of the food chain in action, and we continued hiking.
Seeing the Junebug triggered childhood memories of these big bugs battering against the window screens while we played board games around the kitchen table on hot summer evenings. Though harmless and clumsy, their clawed feet and loud scrambling scared me. Things scritching on windows at night was definitely the stuff of nightmares.
Junebugs are harmless of course. And they are not actually bugs, they are beetles in the genus Phyllophaga, which means plant eaters. The distinction between bugs and beetles has to do with their wings. True Bugs have one pair of wings that are half leathery and half membranous. When folded, they don’t quite meet. This forms an X on their back. Stink bugs are a classic example. Beetles, in contrast, have two pairs of wings. One pair is hardened into a protective sheath, and they cover a more fragile pair used for flying.
Well, the males use them for flying anyway. In many species of Junebugs the females have small, ineffective wings. Instead, they waft pheromones into the night and let the males come to them. Sometimes the males get distracted from their search by your lighted windows. Now that the air conditioner is turned on and the windows closed, I rarely hear them.
The next afternoon I was walking dirt paths again, this time at the Cable Community Farm. A glint of shiny auburn caught my eye, and once again I was looking at a dead Junebug in the dirt. Their particular shade of red-brown really is very pretty. I think Anne of Green Gables would approve. Their head had been snapped off and the guts extracted through the hole. No murder weapon was in sight.
Since my evenings at the garden have been alive with birdsong, an avian predator was my best guess. Birds are excellent pest control at the garden. Bluebirds love caterpillars, tree swallows clear the air of flying insects, a local Cooper’s hawk will hopefully keep the rabbits out, and someone ate a Junebug. Thanks, Friend!
Junebugs are native insects, but in large numbers they can be destructive to lawns and gardens. Their larvae are big white grubs who live in the soil for a few years while nibbling on the roots of plants. The damage makes it hard for plants to take up nutrients and water, so they end up looking yellow and wilted. Robust, healthy plants can often withstand the stress, but small plants may be killed.
I dropped the Junebug’s empty shell back to the ground and continued with my task for the day—hand sifting the soil in an entire row to pick out rocks and make it ready for carrots. The Cable Community Farm is enjoying our first year at a brand-new site, and the soil has already grown a bumper crop of rocks!
Partway through the row, that familiar shiny brown popped up again. This time the Junebug was still alive! As I pulled out my phone to snap some photos, the beetle ran around anxiously until they found soft soil and then made short work of burrowing back down. It was clear that they prefer being underground during the day, even as adults. Zooming in on the photos, I could see the little clubs at the end of their antennae that are characteristic of the Scarab Family. These can be fanned out to detect odors.
After finding only one live beetle in my garden row, I was happy for my carrots, but worried for the Earth. Many people are quick to pull out the chemicals when they see an insect but fail to see the far-reaching consequences of disrupting the food web. Decades of increasing use of pesticides has taken a toll on ecosystems, and the beneficial bugs—like pollinators—often are killed right alongside the ones whose value we don’t yet understand.
I dug the beetle back up and tossed them into the compost pile with the grass roots, far away from my carrots. They are an important member of the ecosystem and I’m happy to let them live…over there.
Emily’s award-winning second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. Natural Connections 3 is in the works—and needs illustrators from the community! Find out more at: https://www.cablemuseum.org/books/
For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.
Last Update: Jun 18, 2025 5:31 am CDT
