Late May brings warm summer-like days, a holiday weekend and clumsy, creepy giant June bugs. June bugs fly like drunken pilots, crashing into porch lights and windows, and getting tangled in your hair. To an outsider, they’re a disaster flitting around on skimpy wings.
Today in The Conversation Canada, Paul Manning from Dalhousie University would like you to reconsider your feelings about the June bug, and he’s written an insider’s guide to the beetle to help you develop that fondness. They can be pests that destroy lawns and plants, but for birds, raccoons and skunks they’re an important high-protein food. Among some human insect-eaters, they’re a delightful addition to a salad: “Croutons from the sky.”
June bugs are “misunderstood creatures,” writes Manning, and he cautions against stomping on one. “You might be saving your lawn from the wrath of hungry white grubs, but you also might be robbing a barred owl, a pelecinid wasp or your neighbour of a protein-rich morsel.”
Also today:
All the best.
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Hannah Hoag
Deputy Editor | Environment + Energy Editor
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June bugs can be serious pests of ornamental and agricultural plants, lawns and golf courses, or they can be a crunchy snack for a bird — or human.
(Shutterstock)
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Shutterstock
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