Darkling beetle (Blapstinus fuscus)
This petite (8mm) black beetle, Blapstinus fuscus, was late to a party somewhere on my driveway, but still paused to let me catch a photo.
Ordinarily I’d refer to this by its common name, “darkling beetle”, but “darkling beetle” refers to the entire family, Tenebrionidae, and eventually this page would have 12 billion photos in it. Tenebrionidae comes from a Latin word meaning “seeker of the dark”. While some tenebrionid beetles do enjoy dark places, and are nocturnal, some species are diurnal and not particularly concerned with dark places.
Darkling beetle (Blapstinus fuscus)
(I was really, really hoping for a much more spectacular origin story for the name “darkling beetle”. I mean, seriously. There ought to be some sort of vampire-related story behind it.)
Darkling beetle (Blapstinus fuscus)