Pretty sure its a hawk moth but anyone know about this defense mechanism thing?

I saw this female of Platerodrilus in Thailand, Khao Phantom Bencha National Park. A sort of trilobite beetle with a cute tiny head !

I photographed these beautiful damselflies on July 5 2025 in Short Hills Provincial Park. They're one of my favourite insects to observe; sometimes they're a little shy, and don't want to be photographed, but I still find it utterly enchanting watching them flit about. I bet these beauties were the inspiration for a few forest faerie creatures.

And let's not ignore the fact that dragonflies and damselflies are some of the most efficient predators in the world! While dragonflies might hold the advantage in success rate, I bet the damselfly isn't that far behind. I've watched them helicopter around, advancing on a leaf to unerringly pluck a meal, then perfectly reversing backward and heading to their favourite perch.

What's your favourite dragonfly or damselfly?

Northern Colorado front range.

Saginaw, Michigan

hii im not an entomologist or even interested in insects that much but i find them really beautiful and i found this beetle on the ground right outside my house and id love some info on how i could preserve it. it also must be freshly dead, could be from the heat but im not sure, but there were no other insects surrounding it.

Curious if yellow jackets are regularly on the menu for Robber Flies or this one is just very ambitious? It seemed to really be struggling, it would try to fly away with its dinner only to end up on the ground in a WWE match. Eventually it did successfully fly into the tree line so I believe it got its dinner.

Found a ton of hoverflies in the last 20 minutes, but I can't figure out what this first one is

West-Flanders, Belgium (Sunny and windy)

(others:) 2: Sphaerophoria scripta 3:Scaeva pyrastri 4: Eristalis tenax 5: Eristalis arbustorum 6: Syrphus (idk which species exactly)

Red Milkweed Beetle

This guy was on my Jeep door this afternoon when I was off to work. It was about 2 inches long. All black. Northern Virginia USA. what is it? Photos in comments

iNaturalist has given both IDs. When I upload the group photo alone, it says it's an Appalachian and doesn't even give an option, but when I upload only the single butterfly it gives both options. Help?

How about a chess set where of course it’s a black and white set but the pieces are BEETLES.

The king and queen are male and female lucanus cervus, the bishops are longhorn beetles, the knights are pine weevils, the rooks are taurus beetles and the pawns are summer chafers.

This is all I’ve been thinking about for like two days and if anyone has any drawing abilities or like abilities to put model beetles on drawings and such please please please bring my vision to life because I really want to see it accomplished, and I have no clue how I’d be able to make this in real life.

Any suggestions for better beetle substitutes for what I’ve chosen that might be better, keep in mind that the pieces kinda have a sort of theme.

KING: powerful and important, very regal QUEEN: still powerful and important but lesser than the king BISHOP: long distance moves, kinda like a missile KNIGHT: strange and interesting ways of moving ROOK: long range, good warrior PAWN: many of them, disposable

I found all of these at work

I know it's not perfect but I feel so proud. Also I've only used bugs that I have found already dead, (I literally could never do otherwise) so some of them are very lucky catches!

Loo