Ophaella communa Allegedly Eats Ragweed

Well. Crumby believes this may be Ophaella communa sitting on Aster subulatus. Well. Crumby knows it’s that particular aster, but he only believes in the beetle identification.

Ophaella communa is justifiably famous for eating ragweed. If that’s true, and ragweed is sufficient for the success of this beetle species in these parts, then there ought to be a trillion of them. That’s right. These parts feature plenty of ragweed, three species of which are plenty common. Plus, there may be some more, rarer ragweeds maybe for this beetle to eat.

Personally, Crumby feels like these ragweed eating beetles must have been slacking off all these years. Even at the CB, we have plenty of ragweed (Ambrosia curanamensis) and no sign yet of hungry beetles on any of it. Uh. You may know our ragweed as A. psilostachya. Nevertheless, now that we have identified Ophaella communa at the CB maybe, we eagerly anticipate watching it wolf up a ragweed or two.

Addendum: Ray tells Crumby that he found a beetle identical to this one in the dog water dish at work. So there are at least two of them, neither espied on their ragweed host. What if, they have found something better to eat than Ambrosia?