burying beetle? aka devils flying spawn beetle

[mattkingoftheworld]

late last night i had the unpleasent exprience of finding some type of unholy devil like beetle flying about my room. it was about an inch maybe bigger, black with red striped markings on its shell like back, at first i though it was a bee because of its long bee like legs. it had massive jaws like an ant. and when i caught it by its belly in a towel it was chewing at it fabric with some strength. i also noticed it carried some parasites on it. it was the most disturbing thing ive seen at three o'clock bed time. i did a bit of research and i think its a burying beetle. ive never heard of one. does anybody know if they are common to scotland or are they foreign. thanks

[GRH]

There are about six species of Nicrophorus native to the UK, and they are present in Scotland (I remember moth trapping in Perthshire once and we had a very large species in the trap, can't remember which one though). I did a lot of work on them at university, and they exhibit amazing levels of parental care - the adults will actually feed the early-instar larvae mouth-to-mouth like birds do (the larvae can make a noise to beg for food), and that's after all the trouble they go to finding a carcass, burying it, stripping it's fur and turning it into a nest (OK, that last bit's unpleasant, but interesting!)

Greg

[Dogghound]

Yes sounds like a species of sexton beetle (Nicrophorus sp) there are several, all members of the Silphidae family, You will need a photo for more accurate ID, They almost always carry mites, they arnt a danger. They are a Brittish species and do occur in Scotland.

[Dogghound]

Beat me to it Greg ...

[Paul mabbott]

have to agree that they're a fascinating little family and great contributors to our countryside. Without them we'd have lots of dead moles, rats and other sfas laying around being eaten by flies.

They are much attracted to light and you'll often get lots of them at moth traps (much to the annoyance of moffers because they can be a bit smelly and scare the moths) ). So they're not the spawn of Satan but really useful and interesting insects!

Incidentally, welcome to the forum - we'll all be interested to hear about other sightings and will try to help .....