On my daily walk, I’ve been seeing a LOT of this one type of bug, and it would be interesting to know what it was. Here’s a description:
It’s about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, with a mostly charcoal-colored, teardrop-shaped body.
The body is somewhat flattened, and has a rose / red / pink / purple stripe running around the outside of the teardrop shape.
It seems to have 6 legs and 2 long antennae.
It doesn’t seem to fly. At least I haven’t seen it flying.
The most distinctive thing is that I see almost half of the bugs stuck together tail to tail. I’m assuming this is mating. I haven’t stuck (heh) around long enough to see if they ever get detached.
I live in Silicon Valley, and I see these things walking on sidewalks and parking lots. In the places where they are abundant, I might see 1 every 2 square feet, or so.
The link describes a particular species; the ones we have here in Sacramento are similar to the picture, but a little more uniformly gray and less mottled than is one.
This is really, really close, but not quite right. The “tail to tail” behavior is right on. The coloring is close, but not quite right. The bugs I see have only a stripe around the edge. These boxelder bugs have coloring across the body, not just around the edge. The bugs I see only have coloring around the edge.
The coloring varies on the time of year and the climate. And 'round here we call them boxelder beetles. They’re very sensitive if you just call them ‘bugs’.
I’ve had infestations of these things, and although in a regular year they look one way, in a hard year they look another. Also, they change colors as they grow older.
And AFAIK, there’s nothing to do with infestations other than to pressure wash them off the outside of the house with soapy water and vacuum them up inside the house.
After looking at them more closely, I think they are red-shouldered bugs. The coloration does change from one to another somewhat. My description of the rose colored stripe on the outside of their body isn’t true for any of the ones I saw today. The red shoulders do appear on the ones I saw.
