I was peeling the loose bark off a log this afternoon and discovered this wide eyed bug "looking" at me. Thought the false eyes were rather cool. He stayed long enough for me to get photos and amazingly, didnt blink when i took them! Its an "Eastern eyed click beetle" and the coin is for scale. I love nature, except when it calls!
Second or third time I've run into one of these while firewooding since the OP nearly seven years ago. The nature nerd in me did a little research and it turns out its good to have them in your logs. Their larva eat wood borers. This copied from Wikipedia. Diet The adults do not eat much but their diet consists of nectar and plant juice. The larvae diet consists of grubs of wood-boring beetles.[4] The larvae are voracious on wood borers, and during their development caged specimens were observed to devour more than 200 cerambycid larvae each.[7] Very cool looking bug though.
