A FEW WORDS ABOUT SILPHA LAEVIGATA

Insects are the most varied, species - rich life forms on this planet ... and as far as we currently know - they could be wearing this title even for the entire universe. So is not a surprise, that you can encounter many species in your everyday life that aren't easy to find and determine through the simple internet search of a non - expert in that field. And even if you somehow find some of the more obscure, less iconic insects, there is a good chance that not much data will be available.

(Enlargeable)

Here on my hand ... on this enlargeable picture, you can take a good look at one of those species - the Silpha laevigata beetle, a pretty common insect in my surroundings ... but quite uncommon and hard to find on the internet.

The only fact I found about it is that it's a predator of terrestrial snails and that the adult beetles are mostly nocturnal ...

... so what follows in the text department of this post ... is just a bunch of my simple, non - professional observations and description of what I saw while taking these photographs. Here you can see the larval version of this beetle ...

... exploring the large, folded leaf of the Woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) filled with thorns. 

It's a nice, sheltered place to rest. The larva will spend some hot, summer's day hours, quiet between these thorns. When not sleepy like on this shot, the larvae are pretty long and very fast and agile.

(Enlargeable)

I often see them running through the thorny mix of Mediterranean vegetation ... or up and down the long stems of various grasses on the open, sunny meadows ... in search for a shelled meal. Just like adults, the larvae are also snail - hunters ... and they are perfectly shaped for this task. On the photograph above you can see a larva that is about to finish its meal, the snail's shell is almost completely empty ... while on the following shot ...

... another larvae has just begun the attack.

On this shot, taken with the night - view option of my camera, you can see the adult beetle in the late evening. I encounter them mostly on the dry, rocky terrain, on the thorny shrubs and dusty roads near the sea. And now ...

(Enlargeable)

... with another enlargeable portrait on the palm of my hand ... is time to end this short look at this beetle's life. As always in these posts on HIVE, all the photographs are my work.