It's time for today's edition of #BenInNature presented by our friends at Carter Bank & Trust!

May 26, 2021

It's time for today's edition of #BenInNature presented by our friends at Carter Bank & Trust!

This fellow is Pasimachus punctulatus, a ground beetle in the family Carabidae. There are a number of different species in the genus Pasimachus that all look quite similar, but this particular species can be found from New Jersey south to the Florida panhandle and west to Texas.

For whatever reason, I couldn't find a ton of information out there about this species (although I hope the picture is cool enough to make up for it). I did, however, find one scientific note, titled "The Courtship and Copulation of Pasimachus punctulatus," written by Richard D. Alexander back in 1959. In the note, Alexander describes finding a mating pair of these beetles in an oak-hickory forest in Hocking County, Ohio one sultry summer night in 1957. He observed the male beetle using its large mandibles to grab the female behind the pronotum (the plate that covers the thorax or middle section of an insect) in order to mate. Considering that these posts generally publish at noon and some readers may be eating lunch, I won't describe the rest of Mr. Anderson's scientific note, but suffice it to say, he could have had a wonderful secondary career writing romance novels.

Thank you to entomologist extraordinaire Dr. Art Evans and Research Associate Curt Harden for identifying this beetle for me!

ABOUT #BenInNature
Social distancing can be difficult, but it presents a great opportunity to become reacquainted with nature. In this series of posts, Administrator of Science Ben Williams ventures outdoors to record a snapshot of the unique sights that can be found in the natural world. New updates are posted Monday - Friday, with previous posts highlighted on the weekends. This series of posts is made possible thanks to the support of VMNH Corporate Partner Carter Bank & Trust (www.cbtcares.com).

NATURE PHOTO IDENTIFICATIONS
If you discover something in nature that you would like help identifying, be sure to message us right here on Facebook with a picture (please include location and date of picture) and we'll have our experts help you identify it!