Take your average picnic, for example. It seems like every insect under the sun wants to join the party. Ants, mosquitoes, chiggers, yellowjackets, and one special unwanted guest appropriately named for the occasion, the picnic beetle. The picnic beetles go by several names. You may know them as the picnicbugs.
Picnic beetles are scavengers with a fondness for sweet or fermenting plant juices.
Put out the fruit salad, open the pickles, or simply pop the top on your favorite fermented grape or malt beverage and the picnic beetles fly in for the festivities. And they are not content to stand at the edges and nibble like a well-mannered guest. They wade or swim right into the middle of things with all six legs. The picnic beetle is one member of a diverse family called the sap beetles. The knobs on the ends of their antennae make identification a dead giveaway.