North America’s insect fauna is changing rapidly. Many of us, however, are completely unaware of this: flies still land on our food, mosquitoes continue to feed on us and carpenter ants show up every year in our kitchens looking for something to eat. The truth is, something strange is happening to the insect communities in our backyards. So many foreign invaders have become established on this continent that it’s becoming a challenge in some places to find native species. In my experience this is especially apparent for beetles: firstly because there are so many exotic species here now; secondly because this is the group that I specialize in. If you casually surveyed your neighborhood for beetles, and sent the sample 100 years into the past to a taxonomist working in North America, they would probably complement you on your excellent reference collection of European Coleoptera!
Photo by Dave K.B. Cheung