Just encountered y first click beetle

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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My wife was hearing a tapping sound coming from a box of Truvia on top of our microwave. I opened the box, and inside was a little bug with headlights that made a “click” sound as it jumped a couple of inches into the air. Oddest thing I’d ever seen. Just in case I’d found a brand new species, I took it outside alive.

Fortunately, such an insect is easy to describe so I went online and discovered that it was a click beetle. Amazing little creature. Had to share since having never seen nor heard of this before, it was like being a child again and discovering something totally new.

And it had headlights! Little lights near its eyes that were continously on!

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Pics!

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Maybe a two-eyed elater. Jubilant creatures, those.

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Didn’t get my own, but google “Headlight Beetle” and you’ll see better ones than I would have ever gotten.

Apparently this particular type of click beetle isn’t native to my Florida, but we get lots of invaders so we’ve learned to expect anything.

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We apparently don’t have click beetles but I occasionally see one of these. They make a cool hissing sound when you touch them.

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We have beetles like this, in the same family as Hopeful Crow’s june beetle, and also making a hissing sound. Young boys sometimes capture two males and stage a duel between them.

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Seen hundreds of click beetles but never I mean never one with headlights. USA midwest here.

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I now feel that my childhood was incomplete. The area I grew up in had those exact June bugs by the millions and I never discovered their ability to make noises.

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Ah, thought of scariest bug here. I saw only two in my life during first 30 years, and no one I talked to believed there is such a bug. usually about an inch + 1/4 long, grey, laid out like a skinned grasshopper but with a toothed gear on its back sticking straight up. I encountered one while climbing a tree and we were eye to eye–it was frightened and made a giant buzz noise as though its gear had started turning! Loud! I jumped out of tree.

I thought it was called a cogwheel beetle but wheel bug is more common, it is an assassin bug and can give you a nasty bite but fortunately its mouth is only about as big as a pinhead. I see them on the outsides of convenience stores at night, pretty common to see one nowadays.

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The freakiest noisy bug I know of is the Sawyer Beetle, which can be found in in Northern Canada and elsewhere. It is easily recognized by its large size (up to 2" long) and gigantic antennae - as long as the body.

This bug makes some serious noises - its larvae, by chewing through wood; and the adult beetles, if you pick them up - they nod their heads up and down, open their (big) jaws, and “scream”! (Actually, the ‘nodding’ rubs striations on their shell).

Picking them up is best done carefully, as they pack a nasty bite.