Jewel Beetles

[drhoz]

Buprestids are a highly successful family of usually wood-eating beetles - at least 15,000 species in 450 genera - but their biggest claim to fame is their bright colouration. Ridiculously bright colouration, metallic iridescence so remarkable you'd think it couldn't be real, or that somebody painted the thing

Comments

[meradragon]

woah! The first one looks so fake. I didn't read the update at first, and I thought this was someone posting a sculpture.

[drhoz]

*nods* I was showing the corpse around work today - half the staff said they'd make good jewelry

[grygon]

I collect beetles for jewelry so YES they would. Now only to find a good source for them. :(

[drhoz]

ethical source, I hope

[doodasnapefreak]

Those are beautiful! I especially love the colors of the legs on the Australian ones.

[drhoz]

*nods* the iridescence really is amazing

[nunas]

So beautiful.

[drhoz]

very :)

[wirrrn]

Jewel beetles are lovely. And protected, fortunately!

[drhoz]

Glad to hear it. Also that the one I found wasn't a victim of my chemical spray

[etxeberria]

I love jewel beetles. I photographed one while I was camping in '08, only to realize its back end was oozing something and it was dying. :(

[drhoz]

where where you? we might be able to figure out the species

[etxeberria]

Washington state, in the mountains!

[drhoz]

No luck finding a good Washington beetle page yet - altho BugGuide has 110 pages of North American Buprestid photos you can compare your one to.

you could try posting a pic to the BugGuide http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740 or What's That Bug? Boards - they're pretty good at identifying large insects

http://www.fond4beetles.com/Buprestidae/index.html might be helpful too