Wild Facts About The Eastern Eyed Click Beetle
Meet The Click Beetles: Nature’s Unusual Jumping Insects
- Click Beetles, also known as skipjacks or jackknife beetles, are amazing little insects that belong to the Elateridae family.
- There are about 800 species in 60 genera in North America alone, and they live in many different places.
What Do Click Beetles Look Like?
- Click Beetles have long, narrow, and flat bodies.
- Their sides are almost parallel and run almost straight from front to back, with very little taper at the tip.
- Their antennae are jagged, like tiny saws and have 11 segments.
- These antennae are located close to their eyes, helping them sense the world around them.
- Some Click Beetles, like several species in the genus Alaus, have large eyespots on their backs.
- One of the most interesting things about their body is the way the front and back parts are loosely joined.
- This makes their body more flexible than many insects and lets them bend the front of their body up and down.
How Did Click Beetles Get Their Name?
- Click Beetles evolved a special defense strategy against predators that want to eat them.
- They can fling themselves into the air without using their legs.
- Click Beetles have a long, finger-like spine on their “chest” that fits tightly into a groove on its middle.
- If a Click Beetle falls or gets knocked over onto its back, it flexes the muscles on its “belly” to arch its body, and snaps the spine into the groove.
- The force makes a loud “click” and launches the beetle into the air.
- If the beetle lands on its back again, it will try again until it lands on its feet.
- Smaller click beetles can jump quite high and fast—up to 10 inches (25.4 cm) into the air (Evans 2014).
- Bigger ones, like the Eastern Eyed Click Beetle, usually flip a few inches high only.
- But because they are such large insects, their flips are more startling.
The Largest Click Beetle Of Them All
- The Eastern Eyed Click Beetle is one of the largest and most eye-catching click beetle species growing up to 1.75 inches (45 mm) long.
- It lives in deciduous forests from the eastern U.S. all the way west to Texas.
- These beetles are shiny black with white speckles.
- They have two large black eyespots on their back, each ringed with white.
- While these are not real eyes, they help scare away birds and other predators.
Life As A Click Beetle Adult
- Adult Click Beetles live in trees, bushes, or sometimes under bark and in rotting wood.
- They’re most active in the afternoon and evening, and some are even attracted to lights.
- While they don’t feed much, adults may eat rotting fruit, flowers, nectar, pollen, fungi, and tree sap.
Life As A Click Beetle Larva
- Click Beetle larvae are called wireworms.
- These larvae have long, hard, and shiny bodies with very short legs.
- Many wireworms live underground, where they feed on the stems, bulbs, and roots of plants.
- Some are pests that damage crops like potatoes, corn, wheat, cabbage, radishes, and cotton (Milne and Milne 1980).
- Other wireworms live in rotting plants and eat the larvae of other insects.
- Larvae in the genus Alaus are among the biggest predators living in dead wood, and have yellow and white segmented bodies and black heads (Kadej, Smolis, and Tarnawski 2015, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24587614).
A Free Ride For Tiny Hunters
- Click Beetles often carry tiny spider-like creatures called pseudoscorpions without even knowing it.
- These small hunters live under tree bark and eat mites and insect larvae.
- When the pseudoscorpions’ food runs out, they climb onto Click Beetles and catch a ride to a new place (Evans 2014).
- Despite doing all the work, Click Beetles gain nothing from this relationship.
- But at least the hitchhikers don’t hurt the Click Beetles.
Conclusion
- Click Beetles are amazing little creatures and exciting to watch.
- Their body design, jumping ability, and connections to other tiny creatures make them a unique and important part of nature.
Scientific Classification
|
Kingdom |
Animalia (animals) |
|
Phylum |
Arthropoda (arthopods) |
|
Class |
Insecta (insects) |
|
Order |
Coleoptera (beetles) |
|
Family |
Elateridae (click beetles) |
|
Genus |
Alaus |
|
Species |
A. oculatus |
Scientific Name |
Alaus oculatus |
Eastern Eyed Click Beetle Photo Gallery
- Eastern Eyed Click Beetle with key for scale. Alaus oculatus. Insect. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
- Eastern Eyed Click Beetle. Alaus oculatus. Insect. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
- Eastern Eyed Click Beetle. Alaus oculatus. Insect. Photograph taken and design created by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
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