CLOSED: Above average

Found this guy trying to fly in my front yard. I know he wasn't one of the bad beetles eating my hosta. He was 1 1/2" long and 1" wide. Does anyone have an idea of his name?

His name is Ralph. Just kidding, it is a scarab beetle in the genus Cotinus, such as the green June beetle/fig eater, Cotinus nitida - see http://www.virginiafruit.ento.vt.edu/gjb.html
Pretty as they are, they can be quite damaging.

Hi Mgarr,

Excuse me for sudden request, but this is my seroius request.
I'm seeking the beetle you showed here. See also the photo attached here and another thread where I'm asking many guys to collect the beetles. Could you collect the beetles?
Let me pay for it.

Looking forward to hearing soon.

Best wishes

No way! Why would you want to pay for a beetle. Just plant something they like to eat.
It seems Ralph here was hurt because if you look at the picture his shell by his head looks cracked. I'm a master gardener and just started collecting bug for talks with the kids. They love to touch creepy things. If you really want this beetle it's yours but he is broken.

Hi Mgarr,

Thanks for your prompt reply. It's helpful.
I've carefully see magnified image of your beetle. Yeah, it's head is clacked. Let me ask, can you see many of this beetle around you? If so, could you collect them for me?
I'm a researcher to investigate Green June Beetle flying.
I will be very very happy and pay for it if you could kindly collect them. By the way, please note there are similar species such as Japanese beetle which is much smaller than Gree June Beetle but looks same as Green June Beetle. See attached image. Right bigger one is Green June Beetle (I want), the left smaller one is Japanese Beetle. I can't wait!!! :-)

Thank you!

Sincerely,

The one I have is large. I'll never admit it but I put him in the freezer this morning. I'll look around and ask the boy next door to help me. I only noticed this one so far.

Hi Magarr,

Thank you very much for your reply.
Please contact me when you find the beetles.
We hope 10, 20, 30, ....., or 100 and more.
We can pay for it at $5 per each if you can collect earlier.

Please keep in touch.

Best regards,

$5 per beetle? You're going to start a stampede of people rushing out to their gardens to look for them, LOL.

OK. I will keep my eyes open for them. How do you need them? Alive? Frozen? Preserved somehow?

Year so far. If you are interested in, please hurry up to collect the beetles. It will be over when we have enough and it's too late. We need only ALIVE Green June Beetles. Please see carefully whether your beetles are actually Green June Beetles: Size, color, form and so on. Send some photos which should be taken with a ruler before selling your beetles.

Thank you!!

We could use some advice, please, on packing the beetles so they will arrive alive. Otherwise, people will end up spending money on shipping to send you beetles you can't use because they die en route, and nobody will be happy.

I am thinking that beetles could probably be kept alive in a ventilated container with leaves to eat while you're collecting more of them, so you could ship several at once... but I don't know the best way to ship them.

Is there an email address we should use to make arrangements? Or should we Dmail you?

Please post on this thread if you no longer need any more beetles, so people know to stop looking for and trying to collect them for you. Thanks!

I know nobody likes a wet blanket do-gooder, but you guys could get in so much trouble for shipping insects into California; especially one not native to there called a "fig eater"...

We definitely need more information on everything involved... good point!

i was thinking the same thing when i saw an earlier thread requesting these beetles. i don't mean to downgrade any researchers or their work, but this whole thing seems odd to me. just be careful in everything you do online.

Let me explain.
I've contacted each person who responded in this thread and in another similar thread because it's better for each other to contact one by one. At that time, I explained how to ship the beetles, and my contact informatoin, and so on.
Of course, we have a permission from USDA to deal with Green June Beetle, which actually allows you to ship the beetles. But if beetle you catch is not Green June Beetle, the permission doesn't work. This is why I always ask to show some photos of beetle you actually catch.

I've been checking my account on this forum since I made thread. If you interested in this beetle request, please post message on the thread or Dmail me, I will contact you soon to explain how to ship the beetles.

Long before we have enough beetles, I will clearly announce it here to avoid wasting your time to collect Green June Beetles.

Hope I've answered everything you guys wonder. If there are still, let me know.

Thank you.

No thanks only dead beetles from me. California doesn't need anymore problems with insects.

i have about 75- 100 of these bugs in my back yard! who ever said they need them..let me know!

heres another pic, i also got from this page...but i will gladly go outside to take a couple live pics of those bugs!

Dontlikebugs,

Thank you very much for your message, which sounds great for me!
I'm looking forward to your photos!!!

Thanks again!

well, i read your reply AFTER i took the pics, so check this one out, if you want i'll go back out there with a ruler. i hope this is the bug you are looking for. one question, does it fly? because this one will fly!

here's a different angle

I don't mean to be rude or whatever, but since most of the United States veggie and fruit supply comes from California all summer long, where I'm from, they would not be happy smuggling bugs into the state, which is illegal by the way, either would the rest of the United States when veggie prices went sky high, and I mean a lot higher than they already are, because of an outbreak. Remember, most Californians, such as myself, have some sort of lung disorder because of pesticides used due to the HUGE bug problem they already have, never mind my best friend and countless others, who is on the lung transplant list because of the pesticides. And you still haven't told any of us WHY you need the beetles.

I, too, was waiting for more information to be forthcoming, if only because I was curious as to the nature of your research. I would suggest that nobody ship any beetles until they verify the validity of the USDA "permissions" and until they have at least enough payment in hand to cover shipping costs. If I were to ship beetles, I would want to know where and by whom the research is being conducted, and what granting agency is paying for the beetles. I have these beetles in my garden, and if I'd received better information last week I might have been able to supply some (which I'd have done for the cost of shipping, as a courtesy, if reosthrtk proved to be an academic researcher).

I think we may just have had a breakdown in communications, but I'd like to suggest that in the future, you provide all of the information up front with your request. I think that will produce more results and less skepticism! :-)

1. Our research is investigatoin of Green June Beetle's flight system because this beetle is very good at flying as you know. There are many things we can learn from it's flying system.

2. We have a permission from USDA which allows you to ship Green June Beetles to us as I told already.

3. Everyone here posts message with individual handle name. We don't want to show personal information HERE in order to avoid spam mails and so on, just like you. Of couse, I introduced myself to the persons who individually Dmailed.

Dear dontlikebugs,

As I Dmailed you right before, I thank you very much for your update.
Your photos are very helpful to see if your beetles are what I want.
Let's talk details via email.

Thanks

Sorry, I was misinterpreting the lack of information on this thread & reacting defensively... I didn't realize I needed to contact you via Dmail for further information after asking questions on this thread. I'm curious in part because I know some folks studying insect flight in other systems and wondered what program you were associated with... I've been trying to figure out if there's a university in El Cerrito... West Coast geography is not my strong suit! LOL

By the way, it's not hard to figure out who I am since I write DG articles under my real name. So far, so good -- I haven't been spammed because of it! I understand your caution, but it still seems like communication on this thread could have been a bit better. :-)

This is a strange, strange, thread.

We lived for 37 years in California, not far from El Cerrito. Green June Beetles are very common there, even more than in Missouri, though I think they're found throughout the U.S.

reosthrtk, if you're really doing research on June Bugs, it's summertime in California for goodness sake - go out and CATCH some. Half the houses there have fruit trees in their yards, and every overripe fig, peach, apricot, or bunch of grapes will have a half-dozen June Bugs burrowed into it.

We could hardly raise good fruit there because of those things, and our kids grew up tying threads to June Bugs' legs and flying them like little airplanes.

If you're really trying to get some for research, you're sure wasting someone's money by offering to buy June Bugs for $5. each. On the other hand, I'll be happy to come out there and contract to supply you with a million live ones for 5 million bucks - money up front, please. LOL

obviously, the thread strikes me as a bit off, also... but it could just be that reosthrk isn't a native English speaker and isn't communicating effectively... so I keep waffling between trying to keep an open mind and wanting to make sure folks don't find themselves in a pickle.

Maybe. There are a lot of strange things on the Internet that are coming out of China. Something like this could be legitimate - a foreign-born researcher in California who is actually doing scientific research and is just a bit confused. If so, he needs to go out and catch some June Bugs.

It could also be a hacker in a foreign country. Sometimes they try to get you to send an email to them through their server in that country - there are computer codes contained in your email that may allow them to hack into the computer the email came from. Sometimes people send such emails from their workplace, so there might be useful commercial information that could be hacked from the originating computer. Unfortunately, such activities are often state-sponsored and they're very large, intentional programs.

Or it could be someone over there in an English class just practicing the language and messing around a bit. You've got to be careful on the Internet.

Now I'll take my suspicious cop mind back to being retired and growing tomatoes. LOL

I got a d-mail requesting these insects and have not replied to it. I would never ship insects across state lines, especially to CA. There just isn't enough information being given. I'm like Jill, I think English isn't the native language of the poster, and that may be causing some confusion. There just isn't enough information being given out.

Sort of like the request I got from another person for as many Poison Hemlock seeds as I could collect. I took a look at their trade list...nothing offered, and every plant they wanted was some sort of poison. Red flags went up everywhere for me.

Been lurking on this thread and here are red flags for me....this person signed up this month and they only paid for a two month membership.

Judging by the reception reosthrtk has gotten, I doubt he or she will renew it.
I wish the average DG'er was as concerned about spreading invasive plants as people here seem to be concerned about Cotinis beetles, some of which are native to California. On another thread, reosthrtk said a month's time was wasted trying to collect these beetles; I can just imagine going door-to-door in El Cerrito asking people to look in their trees for beetles. It's probably a lot of doors slamming or worse.

If I were hacker or something like that, why did I ask this kind of question, in other words, why didn't I ask simpler and normal question about garden?

I've actually wasted a few months to seek beetles becase I checked insect forums.
But there are bunch of spams and scammers, and few peopler who are interested in Green June Beetle.
Most of insect breeders are interested in Dynastes beetles (very big beetles). Then I was aware this month that Green June Beetle is one of insect pests at gardens in USA and ran accross this forum.

Some people seem to think I'm scammer or something like that. If I was so, how can I scam you?
I don't say to SELL something, but say to BUY the beetles.
If I made you collect beetles, ship to me, and I didn't pay you, what would I benefit?

Actually, I'm not a native English speaker and I practice English. I'm afraid my messages contained typo and wrong sentences. I'm sorry that my English made you confused and/or mad.

I moved in California in this May. I'm almost stranger in CA. If some of you could kindly inform me of specific area to collect Green June Beetles near El Cerrito, I will be very glad.

Again, I wil be sorry if even this message makes you mad and/or unconfortable.

It's just too risky, I just hope that everyone is wise to the trouble that is out there nowadays. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was suspicious. I lived in the Central Valley for the first 33 1/2 years of my life, and my mom is retired from law enforcement. I don't have any of these bugs in my yard to ship anyway, but it could have a catastrophic ending if it got into the wrong hands, and if I was this person, I wouldn't want all the fruit and veggie eaters in the whole United States mad at me! LOL

I don't think anyone is mad at you, we're just curious and concerned. California has a ton of problems and they don't need more.

They are all over California, the whole state has them. They are a native to CA, meaning they came from there and migrated all over the rest of the United States. You should have no problems finding them. I don't know how safe it is where you live, but I bet you can walk down some alleys and find some, all kinds of people like growing their gardens in the alley's behind their houses.

My concern is for parties on both sides of this deal, actually, and I didn't mean to come across as unfriendly or unhelpful. I'd still like to know where you're doing research, but that's mostly for my own curiosity. :-)

Apart from other concerns, I think having inexperienced people collect, pack, and ship beetles to you is likely to result in a lot of dead beetles (unless they're *really* tough), especially in this hot weather. You don't want to pay for dead beetles, of course, but people will be disappointed if they took the time to catch them and spent money on shipping them for nothing.

I have an alternative suggestion... Is there a nearby college campus with a student union where you could post notices, or maybe some other youth organization you could contact? If you posted flyers with a color photo (with ruler) of the beetle you're looking for, specifying that you need them to be alive (and maybe suggesting how they can best be kept alive -- maybe in a plastic container with air holes in the lid and some shredded paper? I don't actually know, but make a suggestion in your flyer). Suggest where they can be found (in overripe fruit, as Oz said, is a good bet).

Tell how much you will pay for each beetle in good condition, and you may want to add a note that you need no more than X beetles at a time (50?100? I don't think I'd make a $2500 deal with somebody for 500 beetles, just in case it turns out they've been exposed to pesticides or something, not to mention I don't know any research program that can use that many subjects at once, LOL). Give a phone number (maybe a temporary cell phone, for your own privacy) where you can be reached, and arrange to pick up and purchase the beetles in person. That way, you are certain of getting live beetles of the correct species.

Since these beetles do occur in your area, I think obtaining them locally is absolutely your best bet.

well, i actually checked out his name, and a lot of interesting stuff came up...ALL about research.....he's at berkeley university. he's got a few things going on, and a long resume. if you just google his name, you'll find it too...the groups he is in are all funded too. or go to berkeley's sit and search his name..you'll see it. and the research they want to do to these bugs is wierd if i say so myself, but interesting.

Well, that's interesting.

If it's legitimate research I wish him well, but we're back to square one. Paying $5 per bug to get them mailed from all over the U.S. is a waste of someone's money. Maybe that's how these research grants go, I don't know.

critter's suggestion is best. If this is on the up-and-up he's in a perfect position to post some flyers at school and get college students to bring him June Bugs. That way the bugs are live and local, nobody gets excited about them being shipped into CA, and the kids will be happy to earn some beer money. lol

Sorry, told you my CA geography was rusty -- I didn't recognize el Cerrito as being by the Berkeley campus! That makes more sense. I knew a flight researcher who did some major work there, although I think he's now at CalTech.

There should be summer school undergraduates and even high school interns around on campus at this time of year... if you're really stuck about where to make inquiries, check with somebody teaching intro biology or ask around the dean's office or at biology departmental offices.

What a great suggestion, I would have never thought of that. I knew exactly where El Cerrito is, that's why it's so easy to collect bugs. The farms that ship produce across America is about 2 hours due south in Salinas, real close to Monterey. my husband's sister lives there, and his brother lives in Berkeley.

I feel bad about jumping like that, but they should have started out with
"Hello, my name is (and just use your first name) I'm a researcher at University of Berkeley doing this research on these green June bugs, you can all go to this website (add a link) and check it out, I'm in this group in that is collecting these bugs for flight research" and whatever other information is necessary. That of course doesn't make it legal to send bugs across state lines, but we would have been better informed and gone about it in a complete different manner.

Bum

Dear All

I'm writing this message for announcing we don't need Green June Beetle anymore.
Thanks to advices from some of you, we've got many beetles and it's enough - of course they were delivered using the permission from USDA. If there are still some guys who are collecting beetles, please Dmail me within this week.

Thank you for your advice and help.

Best regards,