Webinar: Beetles (Great Southeast Pollinator Course, Week 7 of 7)
Webinar Date: July 28, 2026
Speaker: Dr. Joe McHugh, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia; Curator of Arthropods, Georgia Museum of Natural History
Host: Becky Griffin (National Coordinator, Great Southeast Pollinator Census)
Series: Great Southeast Pollinator Course
Source: Corrected SRT (Stage 1), GTBOP_Transcript_2026-07-28_Beetles.srt (989 blocks); Archive Package (Stage 2) for structural reference
Audience note: Written for home gardeners and Great Southeast Pollinator Census counters. Every term, description, figure, and relationship below comes from what Dr. McHugh said in this session, and nothing is drawn from field guides or outside sources. His own warning applies here too: with beetles there is an exception to every rule, and these are the characters he gave rather than universal truths.
Set: Three exercises, 8 pairs each, 2 distractors each. Exercise 1 is the census-prep exercise and draws entirely from the identification tour at 37:30–46:26.
Exercise 1: The Eight Groups and How to Recognize Them
Timestamp Reference: 38:44 – 46:26 (primary coverage area)
Type: Species ID
Instructions: Match each beetle group in Column A with the field characters Dr. McHugh gave for it in Column B. Two items in Column B will not be used.
| # | Column A | Column B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scarabaeidae (scarabs, June beetles, chafers) | a) Small, oval to round, strongly convex, looks like a weevil at first glance but has no snout; fat spongy pads under the tarsi | |
| 2 | Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles) | b) Head narrowing abruptly behind into what looks like a neck; soft, floppy, sometimes very short elytra; coloration usually striking | |
| 3 | Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) | c) Stout, humped up dorsally, with fan-like antennal clubs and toothed front legs; the abdomen tip normally shows past the elytra | |
| 4 | Cantharidae (soldier beetles) | d) Humped back, head turned underneath and very small, a long spike-like projection off the end of the abdomen | |
| 5 | Meloids (blister beetles) | e) The pronotum covers the whole head so you cannot see it from above, and the body produces light | |
| 6 | Click beetles | f) Elongate, with a hinge between the front and rear of the body and a backward-projecting sharp tooth at each rear corner of the pronotum | |
| 7 | Nitidulidae (sap, picnic, pollen beetles) | g) Yellow, brown, or reddish, oftentimes with black markings; squishy and leathery rather than crunchy; head visible from above; no light organ | |
| 8 | Mordellids (tumbling flower beetles) | h) A long rostrum whose tip carries small biting and chewing mandibles | |
| i) Elongated, cylindrical or diamond-shaped, with thread-like antennae at least half the body length and broad shoulder-pad elytra | |||
| j) Dorsoventrally flattened, broad head visible from above, antennae ending in a round flat club like a lollipop on a stick, elytra cut straight across |
Answer Key:
1 → c, 2 → i, 3 → a, 4 → g, 5 → b, 6 → f, 7 → j, 8 → d
Distractors: e is the firefly (Lampyridae), which McHugh brought in only as the lookalike a soldier beetle has to be told apart from. h is the weevil, which he used in the anatomy section to show that even a snouted beetle still has chewing mandibles. Both are real beetles from this session that match none of the eight groups in Column A.
Source in transcript: Blocks 517–531 (Scarabaeidae, 38:44–39:44); 533–542 (Cerambycidae, 39:46–40:42); 543–552 (Chrysomelidae, 40:43–41:36); 553–564 (Cantharidae, 41:37–42:25); 565–578 (meloids, 42:27–43:26); 579–589 (click beetles, 43:29–44:24); 590–602 (Nitidulidae, 44:25–45:20); 607–617 (mordellids, 45:39–46:26). Distractor sources: blocks 386 and 560 (Lampyridae, 27:51 and 42:01); blocks 186–191 (weevils, 13:39–14:09).
Note on Column A item 6: The click beetle family name is not given here. Two independent transcription engines and a third verification pass all failed on that word at block 579, and the Stage 1 flag is still open. The two field characters McHugh gave are what identifies the group, and they are what Column B carries.
Exercise 2: Beetle Vocabulary
Timestamp Reference: 9:33 – 43:16 (primary coverage area)
Type: Term-to-Definition
Instructions: Match each term in Column A with Dr. McHugh’s meaning for it in Column B. Two items in Column B will not be used.
| # | Column A | Column B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elytra | a) Bright or contrasting warning coloration telling you not to touch | |
| 2 | Posteromotorism | b) Hairs or scales on the body that pick up pollen the way a dust mop does | |
| 3 | Cantharophily | c) The hardened front wings that cover the abdomen and give Coleoptera its name | |
| 4 | Cantharidin | d) Tiny structures on the antennae that detect chemical, thermal, humidity, touch, and vibration cues | |
| 5 | Aposematic coloration | e) The plate that covers a firefly’s head so it cannot be seen from above | |
| 6 | Setae | f) The substance blister beetles exude from the joints of the body, which blisters skin | |
| 7 | Holometabolous | g) An elongated head capsule with small mandibles at its tip | |
| 8 | Sensoria | h) Flying on the hind wings alone, after the front pair has been given up | |
| i) Development through egg, larva, pupa, and adult, the same pattern as butterflies, bees, and flies | |||
| j) Pollination by beetles, literally the love of beetles |
Answer Key:
1 → c, 2 → h, 3 → j, 4 → f, 5 → a, 6 → b, 7 → i, 8 → d
Distractors: e is the pronotum, which McHugh used as the character separating a firefly from a soldier beetle. g is the rostrum, the weevil’s elongated head capsule. Both are terms from this session; neither matches any Column A entry.
Source in transcript: Blocks 134–140 (elytra, 9:33–10:07); 147 (posteromotorism, 10:42); 447–448 (cantharophily, 32:35–32:47); 577 (cantharidin, 43:16); 572–575 (aposematic, 43:00–43:11); 394–396 (setae, 28:16–28:45); 414–421 (holometabolous, 30:08–30:25); 205–213 (sensoria, 15:03–15:53). Distractor sources: block 560 (pronotum covering the firefly head, 42:01); blocks 190–191 (rostrum, 13:53–14:09).
Exercise 3: The Numbers McHugh Used
Timestamp Reference: 17:01 – 23:47 (primary coverage area)
Type: Item-to-Category
Instructions: Match each figure in Column A with what Dr. McHugh used it to count in Column B. Two items in Column B will not be used.
| # | Column A | Column B | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | About 40 million years | a) Described species in the order Coleoptera | |
| 2 | About 230 million years | b) The share of described animal species that are beetles | |
| 3 | At least 300 million years | c) Specimens of insects and related arthropods in the collection McHugh curates | |
| 4 | More than 150 million years ago | d) When the family Canidae appears in the evolutionary record | |
| 5 | About 65,000 | e) Species in the kingdom Plantae | |
| 6 | About 400,000 | f) A point in the range he gave for how many beetle species actually exist | |
| 7 | 320,000 | g) How long ago beetles were pollinating cycad forests and other gymnosperms | |
| 8 | One in four | h) Described species in the weevil family Curculionidae | |
| i) How far back the beetles go, older than the dinosaurs and still here | |||
| j) Roughly when the dinosaurs are dated, with a lot of debate around it |
Answer Key:
1 → d, 2 → j, 3 → i, 4 → g, 5 → h, 6 → a, 7 → e, 8 → b
Distractors: c is 2.2 million, the specimen count in the Georgia Museum of Natural History arthropod collection, which McHugh gave when introducing himself. f is 8 million, one point in the range he gave for actual rather than described beetle diversity, which he said runs from a million species to eight million and even higher. Both are figures from this session that match none of the Column A entries.
Source in transcript: Blocks 227–228 (Canidae at ~40 million, 17:01–17:16); 235 (dinosaurs at ~230 million, 17:30); 239–240 (beetles at 300 million, 17:52); 244–245 (cycad forests over 150 million years ago, 18:10–18:23); 282 (65,000 weevils, 20:38); 308–310 (400,000 beetles and 320,000 plants, 22:27–22:47); 319–320 (one in four animal species, 23:13–23:23). Distractor sources: block 64 (2.2 million specimens, 3:40); block 327 (a million to eight million and even higher, 23:47).
Excluded on purpose: the species counts McHugh gave for class Mammalia and phylum Chordata (blocks 296 and 302) are not in this exercise, and the figure itself is deliberately not printed here. The same number is given for both, and Chordata contains Mammalia, so the escalating comparison does not hold at those two steps. The Stage 1 log flags them as off limits until someone checks the slide.
Verification
- Every Column A item and every Column B description traces to a numbered block range in the corrected SRT, listed under each exercise.
- Each exercise carries two distractors, six in total, and all six are real content from this session placed in a column where they do not belong. None introduces an outside species, term, or figure, and elimination does not reach any of them.
- Speaker hedges are preserved in Column B where he gave them: the scarab abdomen normally shows past the elytra (block 525), soldier beetles are oftentimes marked with black (block 555), and blister beetle coloration is usually striking (blocks 572 and 575).
- Ambiguity check. Three candidates were kept out to keep every match single-valued. Stag beetles were not given a Column A row in Exercise 1, because their enlarged mandibles are introduced in the anatomy section rather than the identification tour and would have competed with the meloid and mordellid descriptions for a student reading quickly. Bess beetles were left out of Exercise 2, since McHugh’s stridulation and pre-chewed food details are parental care rather than vocabulary. “Mess and soil pollinators” was left out of Exercise 2 because it is a phrase with a four-part behavioral definition rather than a one-line term, and the quiz assesses it instead.
- No click beetle family name appears anywhere in this file. The block 579 flag is still open after three engines. Exercise 1 identifies the group by the pronotal hinge and the backward-projecting tooth, matching what Stage 2 and Stage 3 published.
- No Column B item repeats a Stage 2 Q&A answer verbatim. The content overlaps, since both draw on the same identification tour, but the framing here is character-to-group rather than question-to-answer.
Moodle activities produced for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / Great Southeast Pollinator Course · gsepc.org
Source: Corrected SRT (Stage 1), GTBOP_Transcript_2026-07-28_Beetles.srt (989 blocks); Archive Package (Stage 2)