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From Friday, I finally found what the hell crawled into my helmet, over my mouth, and up my face on my commute home. Not cool. A little internet search and the reliance on entomology geeks and google and there she is. No blood-sucking fangs, no venom-filled stinger armed buttocks…hey I could have gotten irritated skin. Thats very serious!

As I was sitting on the brake coolers at work out on the track, I happened to notice that same bug that was in my helmet last Friday cruising along the gound. It was “seared…seared into my memory” so there was no mistaking it. I actually got out an took a look and the hair on my neck stood up as these are ugly mutha’s. All that said, I was pretty on with my description except for the yellow wings.

Here are the actual details:

A member of the Blister Beetle Family known as Soldier Beetles, Tegrodera erosa Lec. or Tegrodera latecincta Horn. “They are 17-30 mm. long; the head red; the prothorax dusky red; the antennae, legs, and remainder of the body shining black; and the elytra golden yellow, reticulated, and with black margins, a black median belt, and black apices. In the former specioes the black markings of the elytra are very obscure, while on the latter they are strongly pronounced. The beetles ordinarily feed upon the native sage brush, artemisia, and other plants, but frequently invade alfalfa fields and do much damage.” according to Essig in Insects and Mites of Western North America.

Hey, it scared the crap out of me. But this is the last of the twelve steps to a full recovery - Identification. I’m done whining now.