Rain beetle
[ PLEOCOMA AUSTRALIS ]
In the murky evening light of the season’s first drenching rainfall, a strange creature crawls from the sodden earth and launches into heavy flight. After living for 12 years underground as a root-eating white grub, the male rain beetle has stored up enough fat reserves for two hours of life. With no practice flights and no experience of the world above ground, the male flies in frantic search of wingless females that from their burrows emit pungent lemony odors. It must not only find a female but also outdig other eager males as their caloric gauges tick toward empty. Females lay several dozen eggs that hatch by summer.
NATURAL HISTORY
About 30 species live from northern Baja California to southern Washington state, but nearly all of them have very limited ranges because the females never fly and the grubs travel through the soil one slow bite at a time. Pleocoma australis lives in the San Gabriel foothills.
KEY CHARACTERISTICS
Just shy of 2 inches long, these round beetles fly low over the ground, bumping loudly into branches, windows and walls. They are dark reddish-brown with long reddish hairs.
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