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Scarlet malachite beetle Malachius aeneus
When I received the identification for this beetle from bugguide.net (credit goes to Pennsylvania-based naturalist Ken Wolgemuth, who seems to ID most of mine) I wasn't surprised that it was a European native that it common in the northeast of North America--that's true of most living things that appear in a suburban Boston yard. What did surprise me was learning that the beetle is considered rare and declining in Britain. What conditions make a creature common and increasing in my back yard but disappearing and rare in the back yards of my ancestors? A similar situation exists with house sparrows. I'm all for catching and repatriating as many of both species as possible.
The group of beetles called malachite beetles includes mostly metallic green species, and some specimens of the scarlet malachite beetle are very green where this one is merely dark. Also notice the dusting of pine pollen, a feature common to everything in my yard, and indeed everything in our region at the moment. The scarlet malachite beetle is thought to feed on some combination of pollen--from grasses and "herbaceous" plants--and other insects that feed on pollen. Buttercup is mentioned as a pollen source, but those are not blooming yet. Celandine, in the buttercup family, is quite profuse, and could be drawing beetles to the yard.
One source says this: "Only one larva has ever been found, a predatory grub found under some loose tree bark." It seems like some communication between entomologists on either side of the pond is in order. Over in the UK, one could become involved in citizen science to help learn more about their numbers.
