Zombie eating beetles for the win

My dog tried to eat that yesterday. Toddler-in-training attempted to touch it and screamed like a baby when it took flight. Yeah, I know, she is a baby, but that's beside the point.

I post this photo to Facebook asking what the eff it is because I was clueless and have never seen a beetle like it in my life. That's a total of like 30 years of bug catching, frog saving, tadpole fishing, night crawler hunting interactions with the wild ... and never had one of these crossed my path. I was aware enough to know it was a beetle of some sort, obviously, because I'm not an idiot.

Responding with lightning speed, a friend posted in awesome yelling-at-me caps that it's a carrion beetle. Excuse me. *clears throat* CARRION BEETLE.


Do you know what carrion is? It's flesh, of the dead kind. Like what zombies are made of. Awesome right? So now I have a zombie eating beetle in my backyard and my dog and half of the Mini Me Duo are trying to catch the damn thing.

I wasn't sure if I should kill it or trap it or call the DEC to report a sighting. My friend's response was to post this link, which totally eased my fears. In fact, my response to the website was: "Ok, well at least now I don't think it will eat my face in my sleep. Much."

As I said, totally eased my fears.

But it got me thinking about the reasons WHY a carrion beetle would be hanging around my house. The property next door may as well be the deep wild of the Adirondack region, so I guess it's possible for animal death to be lurking in the shadows of those trees. There's something living under our shed — we think it's bunnies, and who doesn't love bunnies! — and it could be a case of Grandma Bunny natural death and, therefore, the natural order of things with the beetle arriving to do business. Or, there is a legion of zombies living in caverns under my backyard and, you know, the zombie eating beetles are saving the planet from the take over that would inevitably happen if they didn't flock to the scene, which is where my head immediately took me. Because that's normal.

At least I know it wasn't going to devour my face and I was able to rest easy last night knowing it was going to save the planet.

I didn't dare tell my husband about my theory for fear he simply would not understand. And why would he? He's totally into zombies and just might be in league with the bastards.