Please name this bug.
Just had a few (7 at once) outside my house in Snowdonia. Pardon my sisters shoes.

Thanks

May Bug they hatch about every 5 years and are increasingly rare.

Or hilariously known as the cockchafer.

Cockchafer (may bug) – male and female identified by number of leaves on antenna. Makes a nice ‘thwack’ when hitting a forehead. Encourages much screaming when flying around nervous types. Harmless and I think quite beautiful.

Pardon my sisters shoes

Does she know you were wearing them?

Those bugs look like ones I’ve had in my house before I renovated it. They look bizarre flying around and aren’t the best at steering if I remember correctly.

lots round our house just now

don’t seem to live long, or else they only become visible just before they die

🙁

They live as beetles for about 24 hours and have to do some serious humping in that time.

Noisy when they fly, we get loads at work about due to appear again. They live in the ground as lava for about 5 years where they feed on Sycamore roots.

May Bug they hatch about every 5 years and are increasingly rare.

Or hilariously known as the cockchafer.

Ahhhh – didn’t know the every 5 years bit – we had them when we first moved to where I live now – only actually saw them in flight – clattering into the windows at night – so initially thought they were big daft moths. Never seen them them since so assumed those two really cold winters had done for them.

I guess that means we might see them again this year (makes note to shut bedroom window)

Really not the thing to have hit you in the face at fairly high speed on a bike. One really good reason to wear glasses when riding.
And to not grin. 😉

Had a male and female obviously randy and flying around our kitchen in our old house. They took some persuading to go outside as it seems they were preoccupied with lust! They sounded like a pair of mini piston engined planes flying around.

used to get these in our garden almost every year growing up in Essex. now I know the sycamore link it makes sense as the garden had 12 sycamore trees at the end, cheers Drac

We get swarms of them in Suffolk. Used to have hours of fun watching girls screaming about as they got them stuck in their hair.

Yeah the little buggers get quite a grip with their barbed legs. Reason I know about them is I’ve worked at the same place for over 20 years and have been fascinated about them appearing in such numbers but only now and then. They’re behaviour when they get the sent of a female is mad but they’re really crap flyers.

I will name that one Charlie.

Didn’t know the Sycamore link, make sense periodically we get a swarm above a tree in the garden.

Mine from last night… Scary when it crashes in behind you!

They live in the ground as lava for about 5 years

Magma bugs from inside the earth! I’m scared now.

but they’re really crap flyers

they really are.
make bumble bees look streamlined.

don’t ride in to them at 50km/h when they linger 6ft above a forest trail.

get loads here, some years more than others. 2003 was so many it looked like all the acorns had fallen in May, until you looked closer. Quite a few this year, more than the last few years.

You think those are bad flyers you see these bad boys.. They seem to come out once a year, fly around for 30 minutes crash and become instant cycle-path roadkill.
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Whoah! Stag Beetle? Whereabouts is that?

I imagine that’d give a nasty nip.

Not seen a stag beetle for along time.

I’ve never seen one. What awesome creatures.

Those are antlers, not teeth. They hurt when they fly into your face though, as I found out when riding my bike in Reading many years ago.

Edit: we get these ones every year, feeding on the lilac in our garden. Rose Chafer.

It’s in Suffolk , when I first moved here I thought they must have escaped from a box of Bananas or something but we’re used to them now not common but seen most years. They don’t bite ( caveat that, they’ve never bitten me) and seem friendly apart from that sticky beetle thing which is unnerving.

Close by we also see Lizards and more frequently Adders so much so that the kids don’t even bother that much. Not sure they’ll survive the 2000 houses being built at the end of that bike path though, Adders, Stags etc not the kids.

Keeping on the insect theme though the scariest things are these great big Wasps(possibly a hornet?)I have a photo somewhere but can’t find it at the mo, wouldn’t like a sting from one of them.