northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here are a couple of beetles that are poisonous to eat, at least to birds and us mammals. I'm not sure they're poisonous enough to kill most birds, though it'll probably be sick for a while. [1] They acquire their poisonous nature from eating milkweeds / dogbanes , 2 related and poisonous plants. But don't go tearing out any milkweeds/dogbanes from your yard; the plants are environmentally beneficial and are perfectly harmless if you don't swallow a bunch of it. [2]  If you're going to ingest potentially dangerous chemicals to acquire a poisonous nature yourself, you want to advertise yourself as poisonous. Both these beetles advertise this visually, but they do it in different ways. The Red Milkweed Beetle has the more conventional advertisement; similar to Monarch butterflies and Large/Small Milkweed Bugs, their red coloring warns off at least some of their predators. The Dogbane Leaf Beetle is a bit more creative, and possibly even more eye-catching; their ...