Mitchamador

Once abundant throughout Europe and a major pest in the periodical years of "mass flight", the cockchafer (also known as May bug and mitchamador) was nearly eradicated bythe middle of the 20th century through extensive use of pesticides. However, since an increase in regulation of pest control beginning in the 1980s, its numbers have started to grow again, and in recent years it has started to appear at our moth trap.

Adults appear at the end of April or in May and live for about five to seven weeks. After about two weeks, the female begins laying eggs, which she buries about 10 to 20 cm deep in the earth. She may do this several times until she has laid between 60 and 80 eggs.The larvae, known as "white grubs" or "chafer grubs", hatch after four to six weeks. They feed on plant roots, and develop in the earth for three to four years and grow continually to a size of about 4–5 cm, before they pupate in early autumn. Because of their long development time as larvae, cockchafers appear in a cycle of every three or four years; the years vary from region to region.

Both the grubs and theadults have a voracious appetite and thus have been and sometimes continue to be a major problem in agriculture and forestry. In the pre-industrialized era, the main mechanism to control their numbers was to collect and kill the adult beetles, thereby interrupting the cycle. In some areas and times, cockchafers were even served as food. A 19th century recipe from France for cockchafer soup reads: "roast one pound of cockchafers without wings and legs in sizzling butter, then cook them in a chicken soup, add some veal liver and serve with chives on a toast". And a German newspaper from Fulda from the 1920s tells of students eating sugar-coated cockchafers.

This individual had a happier fate, and was released back into the garden, where it's unlikely to do any significant damage. This was taken a second before it whirred off rathger clumsily into the air, and shows the delicate wings that are normally folded beneath the elytra, as well as the spiracles along its abdomen, which allow the insect to breathe.