Devil's Coach Horse beetle

[Kittiwake]

Interesting observation about devil's coach horse:

A few years ago, I accidently stood on one on my landing carpet - squashed it completely, unfortunately.

I was cleaning up the gooey remains with a tissue when my cat came along. Within seconds, he had flung himself down, rolling around on the carpet, rubbing his face on the murder scene like it was the most potent catnip!

This went on for about five minutes, leaving him in that ecstatic, post-catnip trance.

So, devil's coach horse beetles contain cat narcotics.

[Cypress]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

Interesting - stag beetles are a southern counties insect, but I see you're in Worcestershire, so you wouldn't expect to see them. Did you live in the south when you were young, and see them there?

Jim

On the contrary Jim, I grew up on the outskirts of Birmingham/Solihull and we had plenty

RED - we had an old tin bath we filled with anything we could find, it was like a mini-jungle! The spiders always got out (surprisingly!) and the frogs, but we did have a pet toad who we re-housed in a 'better' shelter than the slab we found him under, he loved it, and we used to sit him on the swing and rock him before feeding him woodlice, lol! Toads are the best!