I'm not terribly fond of beetles; they are frequent unwelcome dinner guests on the plants I intended for my butterflies.

These beetles were in my yard in a giant mating swarm 8 May 04 at 7:30pm. There were hundreds of them! I've since found them eating my Mahogany and Gumbo Limbo trees.

I had them on my unknown critters page, but Jeff Hagen of Tree House Interactive emailed me to let me know what they are. Here's the information he provided:

The beetles are Cuban May Beetles (Phyllophaga bruneri Chapin). They have 2 active periods per year. One is in May/June, the other is August/Sept. I've been fighting them for a while but they have the upper hand ;-).

Jeff, thanks for identifying these pesky critters.