I spotted it from the foot path. It was moving across the terrain easily like an advanced mountaineer. I took out my iphone and turned it on. I pressed the camera functionality and turned around to see if it was still there. I found it again. I approached it and tried to zoom in. It sensed my presence and ran off very quickly. I tried to follow it but I could not keep up. I zoomed out. I found it again. I zoomed in. It ran off again. It was so quick that I could not manage to get a close up photo. Eventually I managed to get something on zoom but it is not ideal. Sorry for the quality of this photo. It was a delight to try and photograph it. It kept running away from me. It was so fast you cannot imagine how it made me run across the mountain side to capture it in a photo. Beautiful creature. It has quavers in white on the back which is a beautiful bright iridescent green. It is a fast mover so for the time I will call it allegretto until I own a beetle book.
I came across a large collection of small metallic green beetles snoozing in the sunshine inside large leaves of a large leaved shrub beside a foot path in Les Contamines Valley in France on the Mont Blanc Tour which were fascinating too. I do not own a beetle book at present so when I find out there names I will add them to this blog too.
Yesterday I was having lunch sitting on the ground in La Fouly in Switzerland and saw what I believe to be an Asian long horned beetle which flew into landing near me into my food box and need persuading to remove itself from the food box. It had long pointy things at the front that were at least 4 times the length of the body. A somewhat robust type of moth antler.
According to an article on www.swissinfo.ch Swiss experts believe that Asian long-horned beetles are "a particularly dangerous pest" as they can attack healthy deciduous trees and in serious cases cause the trees to die and therefore have to be felled at an ecological and economical cost.
The Swiss Federal Plant Protection Service do random checks on arrivals from Asia where wood packaging is involved but it seems they are now living in Switzerland too although they suspect that is how it arrived.
I can confirm their presence in Val Ferret in La Fouly where they seem to have an appetite for either cardboard boxes or garlic, onions, vegetables. I am not sure which.
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