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Insects & spiders

What beetle is this?

A quarter of all described animal species are beetles, so no key names them all. What this one does is cover the beetles people actually find — in the house, in the garden, in the flour jar and under a log — and it sorts them the way an entomologist does: by body outline first, then antennae, then where you found it.

Entries 28Filters 5 Updated 2026-09-04 Cost Free, no account

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Showing all 28 beetles

  1. Seven-spot and convergent ladybird

    Coccinella septempunctata, Hippodamia convergens

    Domed, glossy red with black spots, short clubbed antennae. One larva eats several hundred aphids before pupating, which is the entire reason gardeners want them.

    Size
    5–8 mm
    Where
    Across North America and Europe.
    Confused with
    Asian lady beetle, which comes in every colour from yellow to red and has a white M or W marking on the shield behind its head.

    In the record 717,986 georeferenced records · half of them Mar–Jun · most distinctive in March · mostly from the United Kingdom check on GBIF

  2. Asian lady beetle

    Handle with care

    Harmonia axyridis

    Variable orange to red with 0 to 22 spots, and a white shield behind the head marked with a black M or W. Gathers on south-facing walls in autumn and gets indoors in hundreds.

    Size
    6–8 mm
    Where
    Introduced across North America and Europe.
    Risk
    Nips skin, stains surfaces with yellow reflex blood when squashed, and causes allergic rhinitis in some people during mass overwintering. Vacuum rather than crush.

    In the record 1,008,147 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in November · mostly from the Netherlands check on GBIF

  3. Japanese beetle

    Handle with care

    Popillia japonica

    Metallic green head and thorax with coppery wing cases and five tufts of white hair along each side of the abdomen. Feeds in groups, skeletonising leaves between the veins.

    Size
    10–13 mm
    Where
    The eastern and midwestern United States, spreading; established in parts of Europe.
    Risk
    Pheromone traps attract more beetles to a garden than they catch. Hand-pick into soapy water in the early morning instead.

    In the record 166,736 georeferenced records · half of them Jul–Jul · most distinctive in July · mostly from Portugal check on GBIF

    More on beetle identification

  4. June beetle and chafer

    Phyllophaga and Amphimallon species

    Heavy, glossy reddish-brown, clumsy in flight and noisy against a window on warm nights in early summer. The larvae are the white C-shaped grubs found in lawn turf.

    Size
    15–25 mm
    Where
    Across North America and Europe.

    In the record 53,159 georeferenced records · half of them Apr–May · most distinctive in May · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

    Grub identification

  5. Eastern Hercules beetle

    Dynastes tityus

    Enormous, olive-grey with black blotches, and the males carry a pair of curved horns like pincers. One of the largest and most spectacular insects in North America, and completely harmless.

    Size
    40–60 mm
    Where
    The eastern and southeastern United States.

    In the record 8,066 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jul · most distinctive in July · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  6. Stag beetle

    Lucanus species

    Glossy dark brown with the male's mandibles enlarged into antlers used for wrestling rival males, not for biting. Larvae spend years in rotting hardwood.

    Size
    25–75 mm
    Where
    Deciduous woodland in North America and Europe.
    Risk
    Protected in the UK and declining across Europe. Leave dead wood in place — that is the habitat.

    In the record 300,544 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jun · most distinctive in June · mostly from the United Kingdom check on GBIF

  7. Ground beetle

    Carabidae

    Fast-running, glossy black or metallic, with long legs, prominent jaws and deeply grooved wing cases. Runs for cover rather than flying when a stone is lifted.

    Size
    10–30 mm
    Where
    Everywhere, with thousands of species.

    In the record 4,720,919 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from Switzerland check on GBIF

  8. Bombardier beetle

    Handle with care

    Brachinus species

    Rust-orange head and legs with blue-black wing cases, under stones near water. Sprays a boiling quinone jet from its abdomen with an audible pop when handled.

    Size
    5–15 mm
    Where
    Damp ground worldwide.
    Risk
    The spray is around 100 °C and stains and irritates skin. Impressive rather than dangerous.

    In the record 35,759 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  9. Rove beetle

    Staphylinidae

    Long and narrow with very short wing cases leaving most of the flexible abdomen exposed, often curled up over the back like a scorpion when disturbed. Usually mistaken for an earwig without pincers.

    Size
    2–25 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.

    In the record 2,614,597 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from Sweden check on GBIF

  10. Firefly and lightning bug

    Lampyridae

    Soft-bodied, with a shield extending forward over the head so the eyes are hidden from above, marked red and black, and a pale luminous segment at the tip of the abdomen.

    Size
    10–20 mm
    Where
    Eastern North America and much of Eurasia.

    In the record 224,467 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jul · most distinctive in July · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  11. Click beetle

    Elateridae

    Long, parallel-sided, tapering at both ends, with backward-pointing corners on the thorax. Turned on its back it snaps a hinge and flips into the air with a loud click. Larvae are wireworms, a root crop pest.

    Size
    10–25 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.

    In the record 945,929 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jun · most distinctive in May · mostly from France check on GBIF

  12. Soldier beetle

    Cantharidae

    Soft leathery wing cases in orange and black, on flower heads in high summer, especially goldenrod and umbellifers. Eats aphids and pollen; harmless.

    Size
    8–15 mm
    Where
    North America and Europe.

    In the record 797,883 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jun · most distinctive in July · mostly from the United Kingdom check on GBIF

  13. Blister beetle

    Can injure you

    Meloidae

    Soft, elongated, with a narrow neck and a head wider than the thorax, often in swarms on legumes and potatoes.

    Size
    10–25 mm
    Where
    North America and Europe.
    Risk
    Contains cantharidin, which raises painful blisters on skin contact. Baled into alfalfa hay it kills horses. Do not handle bare-handed.

    In the record 191,822 georeferenced records · half of them Mar–Jun · most distinctive in March · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  14. Colorado potato beetle

    Leptinotarsa decemlineata

    Domed and yellow with exactly ten black lengthwise stripes on the wing cases. Larvae are fat orange grubs with two rows of black dots.

    Size
    10 mm
    Where
    North America and much of Europe and Asia.

    In the record 58,120 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jul · most distinctive in July · mostly from Belgium check on GBIF

  15. Cucumber beetle

    Acalymma vittatum, Diabrotica undecimpunctata

    Yellow-green with either three black stripes or twelve black spots, on squash and cucumber flowers. Spreads bacterial wilt, which does more damage than the feeding.

    Size
    5–7 mm
    Where
    North America.

    In the record 9,674 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jul · most distinctive in June · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  16. Weevil

    Curculionidae

    The head is drawn out into a long downward-curving snout with elbowed antennae halfway along it. Nothing else has that profile, so the family is unmistakable even when the species is not.

    Size
    2–15 mm
    Where
    Worldwide; the largest family of animals on Earth.

    In the record 2,705,656 georeferenced records · half of them Apr–Jun · most distinctive in January · mostly from France check on GBIF

  17. Rice and granary weevil

    Sitophilus oryzae, S. granarius

    Tiny dark snout beetles walking on rice, pasta or flour, with round exit holes in individual grains where the larva developed inside.

    Size
    2–3 mm
    Where
    Stored grain worldwide.

    In the record 7,408 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jun · most distinctive in June · mostly from Poland check on GBIF

  18. Confused and red flour beetle

    Tribolium confusum, T. castaneum

    Small flat reddish-brown beetles running fast through flour and cereal, which take on a sharp unpleasant smell as the infestation builds.

    Size
    3–4 mm
    Where
    Kitchens and mills worldwide.

    In the record 1,249 georeferenced records · half of them Jul–Dec · most distinctive in December · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  19. Sawtoothed grain beetle

    Oryzaephilus surinamensis

    Very flat and narrow with six sawtooth projections along each side of the thorax, thin enough to walk into a sealed packet through the fold in the seam.

    Size
    2.5–3 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.

    In the record 2,733 georeferenced records · half of them Jul–Nov · most distinctive in December · mostly from Switzerland check on GBIF

  20. Carpet beetle

    Handle with care

    Anthrenus and Attagenus species

    Tiny rounded beetles mottled black, white and brown, found on windowsills in spring. The damage is done by the larvae — bristly golden woolly bears in wardrobes and under furniture.

    Size
    2–4 mm
    Where
    Homes worldwide.
    Risk
    Eats wool, silk, feathers and dried insects. The larval hairs cause an itchy rash sometimes misdiagnosed as bed bug bites.

    In the record 61,876 georeferenced records · half of them Mar–May · most distinctive in March · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  21. Larder and hide beetle

    Dermestes lardarius

    Black with a broad pale band across the front half of the wing cases carrying six dark dots. Feeds on dried meat, hides, dead insects and animal carcasses in wall voids.

    Size
    7–9 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.

    In the record 13,173 georeferenced records · half of them Mar–May · most distinctive in April · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  22. Powderpost beetle

    Lyctus and Anobium species

    Rarely seen; the evidence is round exit holes 1 to 2 mm across in hardwood, with fine flour-like frass beneath. Furniture beetle, the common woodworm, is the same story in softwood and plywood.

    Size
    2–7 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.

    In the record 3,247 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from Australia check on GBIF

  23. Emerald ash borer

    Handle with care

    Agrilus planipennis

    Slender, brilliant metallic green, with a bright coppery-red abdomen under the wing cases. The tree evidence is decisive: D-shaped exit holes about 3 mm across, S-shaped galleries under the bark and blonde flecking from woodpeckers.

    Size
    8–14 mm
    Where
    Introduced across North America and spreading in Europe.
    Risk
    Has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America. Report sightings in new counties, and do not move firewood between regions.

    In the record 5,146 georeferenced records · half of them Apr–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

  24. Longhorn beetle

    Cerambycidae

    Antennae as long as the body or longer, often much longer, on a narrow elongated body. Larvae bore in wood, and adults squeak audibly when picked up.

    Size
    10–60 mm
    Where
    Worldwide.
    Confused with
    Asian longhorned beetle, glossy black with white spots and banded antennae, is a quarantine pest — report it rather than releasing it.

    In the record 2,482,527 georeferenced records · half of them Jun–Jul · most distinctive in July · mostly from France check on GBIF

  25. Whirligig and diving beetle

    Gyrinidae, Dytiscidae

    Whirligigs spin in groups on the surface film; diving beetles are streamlined, glossy, and hang head-down from the surface to renew an air bubble under the wing cases.

    Size
    5–40 mm
    Where
    Ponds and slow water worldwide.
    Risk
    Large diving beetles bite hard enough to draw blood if handled.

    In the record 114,530 georeferenced records · half of them May–Aug · most distinctive in January · mostly from the United Kingdom check on GBIF

  26. Dung beetle

    Scarabaeinae

    Rounded, heavily armoured, often with horns and a metallic sheen, digging in or rolling balls of dung. Estimated to save the US cattle industry hundreds of millions a year in nutrient cycling and fly control.

    Size
    5–30 mm
    Where
    Pasture worldwide.

  27. Tiger beetle

    Cicindelinae

    Long-legged, bulging-eyed and metallic, running in fast bursts along a sunny path and flying a few metres ahead of you before landing again. Among the fastest running insects known.

    Size
    10–20 mm
    Where
    Sandy paths, dunes and shorelines worldwide.
    Risk
    Large jaws; can pinch if held, but never approaches people.

  28. Rhinoceros and eastern Hercules larvae

    Scarabaeidae larvae

    Very large white C-shaped grubs with an orange head and a dark rear end, found in compost or rotting wood. These are decomposers, not lawn pests — turf-damaging grubs are much smaller and are in the root zone of living grass.

    Size
    Up to 60 mm
    Where
    Compost heaps, mulch and rotten logs worldwide.

    In the record 3,306,274 georeferenced records · half of them May–Jul · most distinctive in January · mostly from the United States check on GBIF

Why beetles are easy to place and hard to name

There are around 400,000 described beetle species and estimates of the true total run far higher. About one animal species in four on Earth is a beetle. No key of any size gets you to species reliably, and any tool that claims otherwise is not being honest.

What is achievable, and genuinely useful, is the family. Beetles are defined by one feature — the front pair of wings has hardened into a case, the elytra, meeting in a straight line down the back — and the families are separated by a small number of visible characters:

  • Antennae. Clubbed, elbowed, feathery, saw-toothed or thread-like. This is the character professionals reach for first.
  • Body outline. Round, flat, elongated, or chunky and armoured.
  • Elytra length. Covering the abdomen, or cut short and leaving it exposed — that second case is a rove beetle, and it is a family of tens of thousands of species you can recognise instantly.
  • Where it was. In flour, in wood, in water, in dung, on a flower. Habitat narrows the list faster than colour ever will.

Four families cover most household and garden questions: weevils by their snout, ladybirds by their dome, ground beetles by their speed and grooved backs, and carpet beetles by their size and their windowsills.

Beetles in the house, sorted by where they turn up

Location indoors is close to diagnostic, and it determines the fix.

Household beetles by where they appear, and what the actual problem is.
WhereLikely beetleWhat to do
In flour, rice, cereal or pet foodFlour beetle, sawtoothed grain beetle, grain weevilBin the infested packet, vacuum the shelf including the corners, and move staples into sealed glass or hard plastic. Cardboard and paper are not barriers
On windowsills in spring, tiny and mottledCarpet beetleThe adults are leaving; the larvae are in wool, under furniture and in vents. Vacuum thoroughly and check stored woollens
Round holes in furniture with fine dustPowderpost or furniture beetleIdentify whether the holes are fresh, and treat or replace the timber. Frass that keeps appearing means an active infestation
Mass gathering on a sunny wall in autumn, getting insideAsian lady beetleSeal gaps around windows, soffits and siding before October. Vacuum rather than crush — they stain
Large, fast, black, running across the floor at nightGround beetleNothing. It came in by accident, eats pests, and should be put back outside
In a dead mouse, a bird nest or an old trophyLarder or hide beetleFind and remove the carcass; the beetles are a symptom

The one that surprises people is the last. A recurring beetle problem in a wall void almost always means something died there, and no amount of spraying fixes it until the source is removed.

Beetles in the garden are mostly on your side

The reflex when a beetle appears on a plant is that it is eating it. Usually it is eating something that was.

Ladybirds and their larvae — slate-grey, alligator-shaped, spotted orange — consume hundreds of aphids each. The larvae look alarming and get squashed constantly.

Ground beetles are the largest group of nocturnal predators in a garden, taking slugs, cutworms, root maggots and weed seeds. A ground-beetle-friendly garden is one with mulch, log edging and undisturbed margins.

Rove beetles hunt in soil and compost, and several species are reared commercially against fungus gnats.

Soldier beetles on goldenrod and umbellifers eat aphids and pollinate while doing it.

The genuine plant pests are a much shorter list: Japanese beetle, Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetle, flea beetles, and the root-feeding larvae of chafers and click beetles. All of them are recognisable, and all of them respond better to hand-picking, row cover and timing than to a broad-spectrum spray — which kills the ground beetles and ladybirds far more effectively than it kills the pest.

One specific piece of advice worth repeating: Japanese beetle pheromone traps attract more beetles than they catch. Trials at multiple universities have found higher damage on plants near traps. If a neighbour has one, that is where your beetles are coming from.

The beetles worth reporting

A few species are quarantine pests, and a sighting in a new area is genuinely useful to an agricultural agency.

Emerald ash borer. Slender metallic green, 8 to 14 mm, with a coppery abdomen. The tree signs are more findable than the beetle: D-shaped exit holes about 3 mm across, S-shaped serpentine galleries under loose bark, and pale patches on the trunk where woodpeckers have stripped bark to reach larvae. It has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America.

Asian longhorned beetle. Glossy black with irregular white spots and long antennae banded black and white. Exit holes are round and large, 10 mm or more. Eradication programmes depend almost entirely on public reports.

Spotted lanternfly is not a beetle at all — it is a planthopper — but it is the most-reported insect in the eastern United States and is worth naming here for that reason.

The single most effective thing an individual can do about all of them is not move firewood. Both borers travel in cut wood, and long-distance spread is overwhelmingly human-assisted. Buy firewood where you burn it.

Photographing a beetle so it can be identified

Beetle identification depends on characters that are small, and a phone camera will get them if you handle three things.

  1. Shoot straight down on the back, in focus, with the whole outline in frame. The dorsal view is the standard reference and every guide is illustrated that way.
  2. Get the antennae in the shot. Clubbed, elbowed, feathery or thread-like is the first thing an entomologist looks at, and it is the thing most often cropped out.
  3. Include a scale. A coin, a fingernail, a ruler. Size separates several families that look identical in a photograph.

If the beetle is on a plant, photograph the plant too. Host association narrows the candidates enormously — a striped beetle on a squash flower and the same-looking beetle on a potato are different species.

28 entries here cover the families and species that come up. For anything past that, BugGuide and iNaturalist both have coleopterists who identify submissions for free, and both will tell you plainly when a photograph cannot be taken beyond genus — which, for beetles, is often.

What the observation record shows

Every entry in this key that carries a scientific name is matched against GBIF, the international register of biodiversity records, and against iNaturalist. That puts a hard number behind 26 of the 28beetles here: 1,998,438 georeferenced records across the 11 entries that resolve to a single species, spanning 19 families, the oldest of them collected in 1900. The snapshot was taken on 2026-09-04.

That evidence is not spread evenly, and it is worth knowing before you trust a narrow result. The five best-recorded beetles in this key hold 98% of all the records between them: Asian lady beetle alone accounts for 1,008,147, while Confused and red flour beetle has 1,249. A common thing is common in the data too, so when a filter narrows to one frequent entry and one rare one, the frequent one is usually the answer — and the record count is the quickest way to see which is which. The same skew applies geographically: 18% of these records come from the Netherlands, so the key describes what is reported there far better than it describes anywhere else.

When these are actually reported

Share of 1,875,178 GBIF records of 11 beetles by month of the year, against the seasonal average for all Orvik records 0%6%13%19%25%JFMAMJJASOND■ share of records — vs. all Orvik records 1.0 = the seasonal average
Half of the 1,875,178 georeferenced records for these 11 beetles fall in May–July alone. The bars are the raw share by month, which mostly measures when people go looking; the line divides each month by the baseline for every species in every Orvik key, so a value above 1.0 means these beetles are reported more than the season alone explains, and it peaks in June. Source: GBIF, snapshot 2026-09-04.

Half of every record for this group falls in May–July. A raw month count measures two things at once — when the organism is about, and when people are outdoors with a camera — and the second effect is large enough to give almost anything a summer peak. The line on the figure divides each month by the baseline for every species in every Orvik key, which answers a different question: relative to when people record anything at all, when are these beetles recorded? Values above 1.0 are the months that belong to this group rather than to the season. On that measure 5 of the 11beetles here peak outside the warm half of the year — Asian lady beetle, Seven-spot and convergent ladybird, Emerald ash borer among them. Those are the ones a seasonal rule of thumb gets wrong.

Records behind each entry

Sorted by how much evidence exists, not by how likely you are to meet one. The peak month is the effort-adjusted figure, and it is left blank wherever the sample is too thin for the month-to-month wobble to mean anything.

GBIF and iNaturalist record counts for the 26 named beetles in this key, snapshot 2026-09-04. Rows above species rank aggregate everything beneath them and are not comparable with the rest. Free to reuse with a link to this page.
EntryAccepted nameRankGBIF recordsResearch-gradeHalf fall inPeak, adjustedMost reported from
Asian lady beetleHarmonia axyridisspecies1,008,147564,866May–JulNovemberthe Netherlands
Seven-spot and convergent ladybirdCoccinella septempunctata Linnaeus, 1758species717,986305,978Mar–JunMarchthe United Kingdom
Japanese beetlePopillia japonica Newman, 1838species166,73686,794Jul–JulJulyPortugal
Colorado potato beetleLeptinotarsa decemlineataspecies58,12020,282Jun–JulJulyBelgium
Larder and hide beetleDermestes lardarius Linnaeus, 1758species13,1739,673Mar–MayAprilthe United States
Cucumber beetleAcalymma vittatumspecies9,6747,413Jun–JulJunethe United States
Eastern Hercules beetleDynastes tityusspecies8,06612,606Jun–JulJulythe United States
Rice and granary weevilSitophilus oryzae A.Hustache, 1930species7,4081,709Jun–JunJunePoland
Emerald ash borerAgrilus planipennis Fairmaire, 1888species5,14610,105Apr–JulJanuarythe United States
Sawtoothed grain beetleOryzaephilus surinamensisspecies2,7331,695Jul–NovDecemberSwitzerland
Confused and red flour beetleTribolium confusum Jaquelin Du Val, 1868species1,24943Jul–DecDecemberthe United States
Ground beetleCarabidaefamily4,720,919801,130May–JulJanuarySwitzerland
Rhinoceros and eastern Hercules larvaeScarabaeidaefamily3,306,274—May–JulJanuarythe United States
WeevilCurculionidaefamily2,705,656994,268Apr–JunJanuaryFrance
Rove beetleStaphylinidaefamily2,614,597448,217May–JulJanuarySweden
Longhorn beetleCerambycidaefamily2,482,5271,278,723Jun–JulJulyFrance
Click beetleElateridaefamily945,929420,915May–JunMayFrance
Soldier beetleCantharidaefamily797,883407,111May–JunJulythe United Kingdom
Stag beetleLucanus Scopoli, 1763genus300,54497,118May–JunJunethe United Kingdom
Firefly and lightning bugLampyridaefamily224,467264,360Jun–JulJulythe United States
Blister beetleMeloidaefamily191,822242,215Mar–JunMarchthe United States
Whirligig and diving beetleGyrinidaefamily114,53019,450May–AugJanuarythe United Kingdom
Carpet beetleAnthrenus Geoffroy, 1762genus61,87668,557Mar–MayMarchthe United States
June beetle and chaferPhyllophaga Harris, 1826genus53,15936,649Apr–MayMaythe United States
Bombardier beetleBrachinus Weber, 1801genus35,7596,026May–JulJanuarythe United States
Powderpost beetleLyctus Fabricius, 1792genus3,247411May–JulJanuaryAustralia

This table is assembled from open data and is free to reuse with a link back to this page. The snapshot behind every Orvik key is published as one downloadable file on the open field data page, with each source's licence terms.

Questions people ask about this

What are the tiny beetles on my windowsill?

Almost certainly carpet beetles — 2 to 4 mm, rounded, mottled black, white and brown. The adults eat pollen and are heading for the window to get out; the damage is being done elsewhere by the larvae, which are bristly golden "woolly bears" living in wool carpet, stored clothing, under furniture and in air vents. Find and vacuum the larval site rather than treating the window.

How do I get rid of beetles in my flour?

Throw out the infested packet, then vacuum the shelf including corners and cracks, and wipe it down. Check every other dry good, including pet food, birdseed and decorative items, because the beetles will have spread. Move staples into sealed glass or hard plastic — these species walk into sealed paper and cardboard packets through the seam. Freezing a new bag of flour for four days kills anything that arrived with it.

Is the beetle in my house dangerous?

Very rarely. Blister beetles raise painful blisters if crushed against skin and should not be handled. Large ground and diving beetles can pinch. Asian lady beetles nip and stain. Carpet beetle larval hairs cause an itchy rash sometimes mistaken for bed bug bites. Nothing else on this list is a health risk — the large fast black beetle running across your floor is a ground beetle, and it eats pests.

What is eating holes in my leaves?

If the leaf is skeletonised between the veins by a group of metallic green and copper beetles, that is Japanese beetle. Ten black stripes on a domed yellow beetle on potatoes is the Colorado potato beetle. Small yellow-green beetles with stripes or spots on squash flowers are cucumber beetles, and the wilt they transmit does more harm than the chewing. Tiny shot-holes with no beetle visible are usually flea beetles.

Do Japanese beetle traps work?

They catch beetles and they make the problem worse. The pheromone lure draws beetles from a wide area, and university trials have consistently found higher feeding damage on plants near a trap than on plants without one. Hand-picking into soapy water in the cool of the early morning, when the beetles are sluggish, is more effective and does not recruit reinforcements.

What is the big white grub in my compost?

If it is large — up to 60 mm — with an orange head and a dark rear, in compost or rotting wood, it is a scarab larva and it is a decomposer rather than a pest. Turf-damaging grubs are much smaller and live in the root zone of living grass, not in a heap. Big compost grubs frequently become spectacular harmless beetles like the eastern Hercules; leave them.

How do I recognise a weevil?

By the snout. Weevils have the head drawn out into a long downward-curving rostrum with elbowed antennae attached partway along it, and nothing else looks like that. It is the largest family of animals on Earth, so the family is easy and the species usually is not — the ones in your rice are grain weevils, and the ones notching the edges of rhododendron leaves at night are vine weevils.

Still not sure? Point a camera at it

A filter narrows beetles down to a shortlist. Orvik reads the photo itself and names the species, with the look-alikes ranked underneath so you can check the call yourself.

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