I am pathetic!

[baratron]

I just went to the bathroom, and on the way, saw a beetle.

irc log from #soc.bi:
astra:      ewww, there is a beetle in our house. it is a long, narrow beetle, about 2cm long x 0.7cm wide. it is black. it has 6 legs, like all beetles, which finish fairly far up its body

Comments

[redbird]

Don't panic.

If it is a cockroach, yes they're annoying, but they aren't going to poison you by biting or stinging. Given your sensitivities, if there's more than just one bug-that-can-be-stomped, if you're concerned about what's in the bug poison baits, you might want to arrange to spend a day or two elsewhere before getting an exterminator in. [I don't know if the companies that sell things with names like "roach motel" publish complete lists of what's in them--it might be considered proprietary information, at least in part.]

[baratron]

Yeah, I already knew that, even if it was a cockroach, it wouldn't harm me. Mostly, I was posting because I was amused by my own patheticness, and the fact I figured it couldn't be a cockroach based on the appearance of such bugs in video games :)

I think meirion might be right and it's some sort of flying beetle - I didn't know such things existed, although thinking about it for more than a second, ladybirds are beetles and "everyone" knows ladybirds "fly away home" from the rhyme. The shape of it would seem right for a creature with wings, and it would explain how it got in - we've had any number of interesting moths and butterflies pay us a visit over the past few days when the windows have been wide open to deal with the hot weather, including at least one speckled moth (favourite of GCSE Biology textbooks and exam papers!). Also, the beetle that Richard saw in the street and thought was a cockroach was a lot bigger - 1.5 - 2 inches, rather than cm. (It had fallen on its back with its legs waggling in the air, and Richard rescued it by

[aquaeri]

Thing you probably didn't want to know: some cockroaches can fly. They come in a lot of different sizes. The worst ones (in terms of food contamination) from what I understand are the "german" cockroaches which are fairly small, thin, and very much caramel brown. The size you're describing are the more normal cockroaches. They're usually finely ridged, rather than smooth, and some shade of brown. After that, it's all learning to distinguish cockroaches from beetles and bugs.

[meirion]

in amazing synchronicity, i just posted a message to cam.misc about flying beetles. whatever the creature you have/had and the ones we've had are quite likely to be the same.

but flying and black together preclude cockroach-ness. flying cockroaches (which are carribean in origin) are mahogany-coloured.

the ones we've had buzzed as well. but perhaps yours escaped before you noticed that?

-m-

[hattifattener]

jinian found a bunch of pupae while digging in the garden yesterday. I thought they wre pretty cute. They don't do anything, they're busy, errr, pupating I guess. If you mess with them enough they'll sort of wiggle annoyedly.

[aardvarkoffnord]

Did it look like this?. If so, it was a common black beetle, which can get quite large, but are totally harmless.

I seem to remember a piece of folklore about many black beetles meant a wet summer.

[baratron]

Hehe, no. Like you say, that's a common black beetle, and I've seen enough of those.

The diagram was useful though, because it reminded me that just about every beetle I've ever seen has been, uh, (scrabbling for words) - basically the same shape as a ladybird, or an old-style Volkswagen Beetle. Oval. Even a stag beetle is basically the same shape as a ladybird, just a lot bigger and blacker and with the antler-like pincers on the top. This beetle wasn't oval at all - it was rectangular, with slightly rounded corners. Like the shape of a pallisade cell in diagrams of the leaf. I've never seen a rectangular beetle before