Steve: How is it that we're coming to talk about boogers?

Art: My wife Paula and I were walking down the street one evening and my good friend and neighbor Marshall pulls up beside us and says, "Hey," I've got something you need to look at and he says “It looks like a booger.” Steve: [laughs] And nothing is coming to mind.

Absolutely nothing And I'm thinking what does this have to do with me?

It doesn't even sound like an insect.

So I assured him that we would swing by the house on our way home and take a look.

One of his friends had taken a photograph of a beetle they had found, and I recognized it right away.

The clavate tortoise beetle.

I can see why he called it what he did.

It looks like a little crusty clear and dark blob.

In its native surroundings it would be on a leaf.

This particular species of beetle prefers solanaceous plants tomatoes and peppers and eggplants, and that kind of thing.

Steve: If an oyster were black that's what it would look like.

Art: Yeah, it has kind of a shiny, soupy, kind of appearance It looks like anything but a beetle, which i think is how it defends itself.

It has this dark central pattern The sides of it are what we call explanate.

They're very thin and wide and translucent.

The larvae are even more fascinating because they protect themselves with a fecal shield.

Steve: What is that?

Art: I'm so glad you asked.

[both laugh] Instead of disposing of their waste,they save it an anal fork then they hold it over their body as a protective shield.

It might have chemicals in it that discourage predators and it makes them less visually apparent as well.

They don't look like a beetle larva, they look like a pile of stuff.

These beetles belong to a group known as tortoise beetles because they're sort of tortoise-shaped, they have a very uniform outline and they tend to be and they tend to be sort of convex.

And many of these species do protect themselves as larvae with very intricate fan-like shields that are made up of cast exoskeletons, previous larval instars, or bits of fecal material.

Steve: Another fascinating story from the world of entomology.

Art: You bet.