JUNE BEETLES AND DIGGER WASPS

      On the afternoon of July 7, this past, I was sitting in our car in a parking lot and waiting for my wife.  While there, I noticed about a dozen green June beetles zipping back and forth low across a regularly mowed, nearby lawn.  I watched them for a few minutes and remembered they were male and female June beetles seeking mates for mating in the short grass.  Females release pheromones that attract the males. 

     Adult male and female June beetles emerge from the ground by late June ready to mate.  Males and females are similar in appearance; about an inch long, and dull-green and tan on top and metallic green below, both of which camouflages them.

     Adult June beetles are part of several food chains.  They ingest rotting fruit, tree sap and flower nectar.  However, some of these beetles are preyed on by crows, blue jays, American robins, purple grackles and other bird species. 

     Each mated female June beetle lays about 70 eggs in soil rich in organic material at the grass roots level, below dense thatches of grass.  The resulting yellow-white larvae burrow shallowly into the soil where they consume humus, mold and plant roots, and grow to be one and a half inches long.  Surviving larvae pupate in the ground, winter there and emerge as winged, flying adults the next summer.  Their purpose as adults is to reproduce.   

     Striped skunks dig up and eat some of the June beetle larvae, along with other edibles they dig from the ground.  And several digger wasp females dig through the soil to find beetle larvae, including those of June beetles.  Those digger wasps sting the beetle larvae they come across to paralyze them, and lay an egg on each one of them.  Each larval wasp hatches and devours the beetle grub it was deposited on.  Then each wasp larva pupates and overwinters in the ground where it hatched and dined.  Next summer adult digger wasps emerge from the soil and can be spotted sipping nectar from a variety of flowers.  

     Adult digger wasps are attractive and the genders are similar.  Each one is black, with black wings, but the rear half of their abdomens are a lovely rusty-red.  I've seen many of them on blossoms over the years, at the expense of as many June beetle larvae.

     Adult green June beetles and digger wasps are handsome and interesting.  They are both visible around the eastern United States during July of each year.            

     

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