Dear Tweeters,

This evening at about 10:00 P.M., one of our dogs started chasing after a very large beetle. This insect had flown down to our driveway near Lyman (Skagit County) during a windy spell--thunderstorms to the east of us.

It had to be the biggest beetle I have seen anywhere around here. It reminded me of pictures I'd seen of the Colorado potato beetle, but a Wikipedia article stated that those get to be only about ten millimeters in size.

The beetle at my house had to be thirty to forty millimeters in length. It was roughly bullet-shaped, with bold yellow longitudinal stripes on its elytra (if that's what you call the hard things that cover the wings). The shape of the insect was more bullet- or torpedo-like, and not so Volkswagen-like, compared to the online photos I saw of the Colorado potato beetle. The forelegs had some spiny-looking projections on them.

I didn't want the dog to hurt it--or get sick eating it--so I tossed it up into the wind, and it flew off.

Any ideas?

Yours truly,


Gary Bletsch ? Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?