On one of our evening walks in the summer, my partner and I spotted some hogweed that was covered in lots of these randy red beetles! These hogweed bonking beetles are actually a very common sight in summer that is easily missed.
I was feeling disappointed not to have taken my camera (or even my phone) with me on that walk. I figured that the mating season was probably over, so I had given up capturing an image of this en-masse behaviour. That was until one weekend in July when I stumbled across another group of common red soldier beetles in the long grass when walking around Loch Ardinning. And here is one of the resulting images! Like most of my recent insect photos, this was taken using my 80-400mm lens.
As well as being known as the bonking beetle, the common red soldier beetle is also known as the ‘bloodsucker’ for its striking red appearance, but it is named a ‘soldier’ for its bright red jacket with black marks near the tips of the wing cases. It is also easily identified by its narrow, rectangular body and longish antennae. However, there are plenty of other soldier beetles in the UK – about 40 species in fact – with colour combinations of black, red and orange.