This fine fellow was scooting along the pavers behind my car, crying out to be photographed - at least that's how I took his splendid, showy appearance, despite all other evidence pointing to him desperately wanting to get away from me. Have a look at his left front leg and right middle leg - he is definitely trying to go in the opposite direction of this paparazzo.

But not too fast for my trusty Huawei Mate 9's camera - as I squatted and leaned forward to keep up with him at the same time (not a good combo - try it and you'll see what I mean), I managed to zoom in and focus on his impressive stripes and long antennae.

What to investigate?

The obvious first matter to put to rest was what our resplendent beetle is actually called. However, the photo triggered something else I hadn't noticed while I was chasing him for a photo - the timing of the movement of his little beetle feets.

While I'm intrigued by the apparent movement of one leg at a time on each side, but not the same leg, the need for video work and willing test subjects means I'll have to investigate beetle gait when the time is right.

I settled for figuring out what he is

This discovery turned out to be interesting enough, as our sartorially splendid friend was not identifiable by his distinctive red stripes. A Google search of "beetle black red stripes south africa" yielded lots of images of red beetles (yes, including some Volkswagens), but not a whiff of a hint of what this specimen might be.

A change in Google search to "beetle long antennae south africa" and I hit paydirt. Whatsthatbug (isn't that a great name for a website?) not only had a completely diagnostic photo of my scooting fellow...

Longhorned borer beetleImage source

...it had an interesting historical photo as well.

Ceroplesis militaris, or Longhorned Borer Beetle on a South African postage stampImage source

However, I suspect after my now extensive search that this stamp identification might be...

gif source

Down the Ceroplesis rabbit hole

Shades of using PlantSnap to identify plants! You'd think three diagnostic red stripes would be, well, diagnostic. My Ceroplesis Wikipedia search turned up 52 (!!) species of this genus of flat-faced longhorn beetles which belong to the Cerambycidae family, subfamily Lamiinae. Of those, it turned out that nine were "known from South Africa". There were photos for only two of those on Wikipedia, bicincta and hottentotta, from South Africa, and one photo for militaris from Eritrea.

So we keep looking....

Seven species shouldn't be that difficult to track down on the interwebs, should they? Especially since entomologists seem to have been discovering this particular genus since the 1800s?

Aethiops

The things you find down a rabbit hole! There's a website for beetle collectors. It's aptly called Beetles of Africa, and there I found aethiops in all its glory. I needed permission to use its photo, so am asking you to trust me that this was not the same species - although there were three stripes, they did not meet over the wings.

Bicincta

We might be onto something with this one. What do you think?

Ceroplesis bicincta Image source

I'm not sure about the apparent lack of a third stripe on the wingtips. Let's keep looking.

Capensis

This is where the search took an interesting turn. An image search for capensis came up multiple images, especially on the Project Noah site of the Pondo Pondo Longhorn Beetle, which is actually Ceroplesis thunbergi, not capensis.

Nope, nope, nope - thunbergi!

Here are three photos of different specimens which I trust will convince you, as I am convinced, that we have found our species.

Pondo Pondo Longhorn Beetle, Ceroplesis thunbergi Image source

Pondo Pondo Longhorn Beetle, Ceroplesis thunbergiImage source

Pondo Pondo Longhorn Beetle, Ceroplesis thunbergiImage source

Would you agree these all look remarkable like my parking lot scamperer?

Granted, all three images are from Project Noah, and perhaps there was some groupthink going on when they identified these specimens. However, the site itself appears reputable, and for the purposes of identifying a beetle in a parking lot...we've done swimmingly well to get this kind of consensus.

Side note

If you're deeply interested in this kind of beetle - go to the Democratic Republic of Congo. an impressive percentage of the 52 ceroplesis species is resident there.

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