This amazing looking creature is a chafer beetle. There are quite a lot of different chafer beetles in the UK, and we think this one is called a summer chafer. They begin life as eggs, which hatch into larvae (grubs) underground and grow by eating the roots of grasses.
After a few years, chafer grubs turn into beetles and emerge from the ground and fly around – the ones called cockchafers emerge in May and are known as May bugs. Summer chafers emerge a bit later, in June and July.
Cockchafers have amazing antler-like antennae, which you can see in this video. You can also hear the loud buzzing noise they make as they fly:
Find all the Bugs in the Old Pond Garden (there are ten altogether), put the letters together and find the final Bug!
If you spot any real live bugs / creatures / insects in the Old Pond Garden today, try to take a photograph and find out what it is. We’d love to see it, so if you post on Instagram you can tag us: @cabahs_hortisoc and use the hashtag #BugsInTheBeds
This page is part of the ‘Bugs in the Beds’ trail running on the Old Pond Garden, Charlton House, on 21st May 2023.
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 