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Note: Level of identification and depth of species overview is dependent on photo quality, so try and get as close/in focus as you can!
Gorgeous find! This is a type of beetle called a Delta Flower Scarab, their scientific name is Trigonopeltastes delta. This species was first described way back in 1771 by Johann Reinhold Forster. The name of it’s genus (Trigonopeltastes) means triangle shield, and specifically refers to the pelta - a shield used by certain Greek infantry called peltasts. The species name (delta) refers to that triangular shape on the beetle’s thorax, which resembles the greek letter delta.
Delta Flower Scarabs are found across the Southeastern U.S., going as west as Texas and about as north as Maryland. There is one other U.S. species in the genus Trigonopeltastes named Trigonopeltastes floridanus, the Scrub Palmetto Scarab. It’s only found in the unique western-like habitat called the Florida scrubland.
Adult Delta Flower Scarabs eat nectar and pollen from flowers of a wide variety of plant species. Some of these include cabbage palmetto, coneflower, feverfew, goldenrod, new jersey tea, queen anne's lace, rattlesnake master, arborvitae, avocado, bay, boxthorn, brazilian pepper, buckwheat, button-wood, carnations, carrot, chinkapin oak, citrus, crotalaria, croton bud, elephant foot, faba bean, florida silver palm, groundsel, hibiscus, inkberry, jujube, kapok, leatherwood, lychee, magnolia, mango, marlberry, morning glory, orchid, paper bark tea tree, poinsettia, poisonwood, privets, red-root, rose, saw palmetto, shining sumac, southern sumac, white sapota, whorled milkweed and almost certainly many more. A number of the plants that they feed on they also pollinate!
Adult beetles are usually found flying around during the day May-August (though they seem to emerge again in the fall in Florida). Males are less colorful than females and are more prevalent. Mating occurs on flowers, and eggs are usually laid in decaying wood which the young larvae will feed on. However, in some very intriguing cases the larvae have been found feeding inside Giant Airplant (Tillandisa utriculata). Larvae then pupate and emerge as adults again around May.
Interestingly in the Florida everglades these beetles can be found in the thousands on palmetto flowers. This is particularly interesting to me because of their association with the Giant Airplant. Giant Airplants historically form a vast and unique microhabitat in the canopy of the trees since they form phyotelma. A phytotelma (phytotelmata plural) is a fancy term for when a plant holds a pool of water inside of it, which is then inhabited by all sorts of tiny organisms. Unfortunately the populations of Giant Airplant are in steep decline due to an introduced species of weevil, and are now endangered. So with the Delta Flower Scarab I’m curious how it might play a role in that habitat, how it’s populations have been affected by the drop in Giant Airplants, and also what allowed them to adapt to such an unusual plant in the first place. Very strange!
Another aspect of this beetle I’m wondering about is if the combination of their very diverse palate, and its inclusion of Marlberry (a native Ardisia species), could point to Delta Flower Scarabs having to capability to adapt to the invasive Coral Ardisia. It feeds on a number of introduced species and unrelated plant groups after all, even some plants with pretty intense defenses!
Thank you so much for sharing, if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out!
Bonus bug fact: The vibrant colors on this beetle may help it trick other animals into thinking it’s a paper wasp! This is called Batesian mimicry, when an organism look like something that's more dangerous than it actually is.
Dozier HL. 1920. "An ecological study of hammock and piney woods insects in Florida." Annals of the Entomological Society of America 13: 325–380.
Frank, J. H., & Cave, R. D. (2005, September). Metamasius callizona is destroying Florida’s native bromeliads. In Second International Symposium on Biological Control of Arthropods, Davos, Switzerland (Vol. 1, pp. 91-101).
Goodyer GJ, Nicholas A. 2007. Scarab grubs in northern tableland pastures. NSW Department of Primary Industries. Primefact 512: 1–8.
Lounibos, & Frank. (2009). Insects and allies associated with bromeliads: a review. Terrestrial arthropod reviews, 1(2), 125-153.
Ritcher PO. 1958. "Biology of Scarabaeidae." Annual Review of Entomology 3: 331–334.
Pascarella, J. B., Waddington, K. D., & Neal, P. R. (2001). Non-apoid flower-visiting fauna of Everglades National Park, Florida. Biodiversity & Conservation, 10(4), 551-566.
Woodruff RE. 1960. "Suppression of the genus Roplisa Casey with notes on the United States species of Trigonopeltastes Burmeister (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)." Florida Entomologist 43: 139–145.
Howdy! My name is Ahn and I'm an amateur entomologist (currently in school!). I'm extremely passionate about insects and have been studying them independently since I was ten years old. I love the bizarre and obscure and hope to become an expert in scorpionflies and barklice. My dream is to travel around the world full time studying insects and teaching people about the wonderful and bizarre things they do, as well as how they do them. This website is an attempt to simultaneously reach the public (that's you!), share my passion, spark curiosity, and hopefully help fund my adventures. Unfortunately I am a broke college student early in academia, gas and healthy food is expensive, and it’s tricky to convince people to pay you to learn about insects for their intrinsic value as animals on the earth. So that’s where you come in (hopefully)! Help a guy out with daily living, learn a piece of the insectoid puzzle, and directly support new research in bugs we know little about! It’s a win-win if you ask me, a totally not biased third party.
P.S. I am also a photographer and a musician. I mainly do macrophotography and bizarrely edited portrait photography. Musically I mostly play the musical saw and spoons. Feel free to reach out if you’d be interested in any services related to those hobbies as well.
Generally scorpionflies are bizarre vulture-like insects named after their enlarged scorpion-like genital bulbs. They are however also tiny insects that jump around on the snow, flat squeaking insects with forcep-like genitalia, large cranefly-like insects with daggers for feet, and so much more. What interests me most about them is how much room there is to discover even the most basic information about most families. The larvae haven’t even been documented for several of them! I have a lot of big questions I want to tackle with scorpionflies like how precisely fleas evolved from them, what specifically is driving hangingflies in Florida to extirpation, and how exactly the scorpionflies in America are related to each other and species abroad.
Barklice are a group of insects with over 5,000 species found all over the world. They primarily inhabit surfaces of plants where they eat lichen and often blend seamlessly into their environment. There is no shortage of oddities hidden in barklouse diversity. There are species that live in communities that coat whole trees in thick silk, nymphs that burrow into wood, and even barklice with unique hardened dome-like wings. What interests me most about barklice is how prevalent they are but simultaneously so overlooked. They can be found in most habitats if you keep your eyes keen, and yet the basic biology of most species is entirely unknown. Some of the projects I have planned include creating new identification tools, investigating acoustic and chemical communication between barklice, looking at bacteria living inside of barklice that clone themselves, and formally describing a multitude of undescribed species.
Although I do tend towards specializing in Barklice and Scorpionflies, I am a generalist at heart. Every insect I learn about sparks a question for me, some big, some small. There are a plethora of projects I have in store. For example pictured here is a bizarre non-insect Hexapod called a Proturan, or conehead. They have very interesting roots in the evolution of insects that I would love to help explore, alongside describing species and understanding how they interact with other organisms in the soil. Another group that fascinates me are water mites, and I intend to look for them in the limestone caves of the Florida aquifer, investigate how mites went back into aquatic habitats, and test different species for their sensitivity to changes in water quality. Generally I intend to study any and all weird little bugs that interest me, from the beach dwelling monocerus beetles, to the scales of ancient bristletails.
