''Eleodes osculans'', the wooly darkling beetle or woolly ground beetle, is a common insect in coastal southern and central

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in wooded areas or

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean c ...

, and in

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. As a stink beetle of genus ''

Eleodes ''Eleodes'' is a genus of darkling beetles, family Tenebrionidae. They are commonly known as pinacate beetles or desert stink beetles. They are endemic to western North America, with many species found in the Sonoran Desert. The name ''pinacate ...

'', its easily observed defensive posture is to raise its hind end and secrete an unpleasant odor. ''E. osculans'' has a length of 12-16 mm and is the only known

darkling beetle Darkling beetle is the common name for members of the beetle family Tenebrionidae. The number of species in the Tenebrionidae is estimated at more than 20,000 and the family is cosmopolitan in distribution. Taxonomy ''Tenebrio'' is the Latin gen ...

species with reddish-brown hair covering most of its black

exoskeleton An exoskeleton (from Greek ''éxō'' "outer" and ''skeletós'' "skeleton") is an external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to an internal skeleton (endoskeleton) in for example, a human. In usage, some of the ...

. It is similar to '' Eleodes nigropilosa'' and '' Eleodes littoralis'', which have darker hair.

References

External links

* * Tenebrionidae Beetles of North America Beetles described in 1851 {{tenebrionidae-stub

References

Further reading

External links