Darotelium odoratum: a bioterminator from a dacha (8 photos)

Gardeners and summer residents have more allies than they usually realize. Ladybugs and predatory bugs destroy aphids by the thousands, while wolf spiders patrol strawberry beds, and predatory mites keep spider mites at bay. But none of them are half as powerful as the odorous rhododendron, a member of the ground beetle family. It not only destroys pests on an industrial scale, it does it with style!





These flowers are under my protection, do you understand?!

Just look at the beetle itself—it's simply magnificent! A healthy insect, up to 3.5 centimeters long, it's clad from head to toe in chitinous armor and capable of fending off any arthropod of similar size. But it's also stunningly beautiful: its elytra are emerald green, while its back and head are blue-violet. And all this splendor even has a metallic sheen, as if we're looking at a perfect machine, not an animal made of flesh and hemolymph! At first glance, it's clear why it's nicknamed the "beautiful beetle."



Look at it, admire it!

But to understand why it's called "smelly," you'd have to really irritate the beauty beetle. Then, in an attempt to get rid of the annoying person, it will release a few drops of a pungent and very smelly liquid. I wouldn't recommend touching the beauty beetle after this, otherwise you'll smell the beetle's scent on your fingers for several days.





A good angle to draw attention to its jaws. Scary!

And anyway, don't bother touching it; the carabid beetle is busy with something important. In its lifetime, a single carabid beetle can destroy up to 3,000 caterpillars of the gypsy moth and tussock moth, which are extremely dangerous to fruit and ornamental trees! Moreover, the carabid beetle is practically the only natural enemy of silkworms in Europe and Western Siberia, and their numbers directly depend on the number of carabid beetles in the region.



And here's breakfast.



Many caterpillars protect themselves from predators with long, sharp hairs. The krasotnik doesn't care.

But no hunt lasts forever. When the days get shorter and the nights get colder, the krasotnik goes into hibernation. It burrows deep into the fallen leaves and lies there. So that they can safely thaw out next spring and return to doing good and offering affection! You didn't think this beautiful predator would just retire, did you?



Darling beetles spend most of their lives in trees, flying from one to another. This is what sets them apart from other ground beetles, which are terrestrial predators and often flightless.

Darling beetles can live up to four years—longer than a wild rat or squirrel—and each year they suffocate hundreds of pests and, of course, reproduce. The species has never been observed engaging in any mating displays, but each year the female lays up to 650 eggs, which hatch into small but incredibly effective monsters.



In their youth, the damselfish are less attractive. But they are no less dangerous!

Their effectiveness is demonstrated by the fact that damselfish have an extremely wide range—from the coast of Western Europe to Krasnoyarsk. But even more intriguing is that people voluntarily introduced damselfish to North America in the early 20th century to save the United States from an impending environmental crisis.



The gypsy moth is a terror to the silkworm's web nest.

The problem is that just a few years earlier, Americans had accidentally introduced gypsy moths, which nearly destroyed fruit trees on the US East Coast. Foreign specialists had to be urgently brought in. And they succeeded. Now, the gypsy moth population in the US confidently and effectively controls the pest population, preventing it from becoming a real problem for the country.