BeetleMania 2024

28th Sept 2024

Chennai

I wrote this for Creative Expressions of Monsoon Beauty / Beetles.  

The Beetle Verse

Let me write you some beetle limericks
Each one - a bag full of tricks

All Coleoptera
Check for elytra
And here are my current favourite picks.

The Tiger beetle is now top of my shortlist
Unaware was I such a nifty predator exists
Running with speed
Huge appetites indeed 
In my mum’s sand garden, its territory persists.

The Dung beetle I saw was quite the roller
Hardworking nutrient recycling tiny soldier
With hind legs so strong 
That dung ball moved along
Dodging that “helper” who was a robber!

Now there are Jewel bugs and beetles iridescent
How to distinguish - my perennial lament 
The bug is a sucker
The beetle a chewer
Whichever, Jewel spotting will leave you content.

Rhino beetles, large, dark-coloured and horned
The males stage mating battles, be warned
They look so ferocious
But really that’s atrocious 
‘Cos they’re plant eating, non-biting - that’s confirmed!

At the bottom of my list are those Weevils
I must admit I saw them as pests and evil
Eating my channa and rice
Is really not nice
But my viewpoint is maybe medieval?

And those are only the beetles that I have seen
Others, like the Dermestids keep the skeletons clean
Stags, Ground Beetles and  Blisters
Whirligigs, Water and Algae-feeders
So many more nature’s wonders  remain, to me, unseen.

****

The India Nature Group were so delighted 

by my verse on Beetles, always so blighted

It won a prize

much to my surprise

Leaving me ever so astonished and excited!

Rewards for my labour!