The Blue BEETLE Debate!
Picture by Ms. Carter
I was asked to post some pictures of my 2011 trip; when I did so there was some debate about one of my captions. While in Plitvice National park in Croatia, I snapped a picture of a little blue thing. I was asked what this "bug" was and was told that it was a "weird spider or something," not a beetle. Seeing as it only had 6 legs, it couldn't be a spider, but I wasn't able to convince my little friends that it was a beetle.
After searching high and low (in an effort to NOT pay these ladies $1 each - a REAL dollar), I found a definitive answer!! (A few answers ...just in case they have trouble believing me ;) I searched: blue beetle, beetles in Croatia, blue beetles in Eastern Europe, blue beetles in the Adriatic. Those searches didn't yield any great pictures. Finally the search for "blue insect Croatia" got me to a PERFECT picture of my bug...
After searching high and low (in an effort to NOT pay these ladies $1 each - a REAL dollar), I found a definitive answer!! (A few answers ...just in case they have trouble believing me ;) I searched: blue beetle, beetles in Croatia, blue beetles in Eastern Europe, blue beetles in the Adriatic. Those searches didn't yield any great pictures. Finally the search for "blue insect Croatia" got me to a PERFECT picture of my bug...
(Drum roll)
Please meet:
Rosalia longicorn a.k.a. Rosalia alpina a.k.a.
Blue Longhorn Beetle with Black Spots
The First Real Proof - a Stamp
If this little creature has been immortalized on an official government stamp as a BEETLE, that is proof enough for me :)
The lovely blue beetle appeared on a stamp from Croatia (Hrvatska) in 2005.
See it here or here.
MORE Stamp Proof
This is a popular little guy! When I searched for other pictures of the Croatian stamp, I got all these for different countries.