Beetle Update

I got an answer from the "Whatsthatbug" site today (isn't it wonderful that there is a site where you can send in your bug pictures, from the comfort of your computer, and they will tell you what your bug is, for Free? Here is the site http://www.whatsthatbug.com/ They may say they are swamped, but they got back to me in a day, and I think that is pretty good. Of course, I might have felt differently about it if I had been asking about a fierce looking bug inside my house.). Here is their message:


"...It is a Dogbane Beetle,Chrysochus auratus. Unlike the Japanese Beetle which will eat leaves and blossoms from countless 1000s of plants, the Dogbane Beetle feedsexclusively on the leaves of plants in the Dogbane family Apocynaceae."


I googled the Dogbane Beetle, and found this picture at the Iowa State University Entomology Department's web site:
















And here is my beetle (the other picture, in the previous bug post, shows the details of the legs & antenna better):









As Marie Antoinette might have said, "Let them eat dogbane and milkweed." I've been fighting a losing battle with all the milkweed in the lawn, and if these beetles will help, I'm thrilled. I'm perfectly willing to throw in all the dogbane they want, too.


*Now that I've looked up milkweed & dogbane, I'm not sure which one is growing all over the backyard, but I've got a nasty suspicion, judging by the stalk color, branching stems, and flowers, that it is dogbane, which is Highly Toxic. It's always something, eh?