Fire Beetles

I'm still touring France on my motor bike.I went on a visit to Oradour yesterday (for those that don't know; Oradour is a town in France where the Germans massacred the population and then tried to cover it up by blowing up the place and burning everything in sight. Of course the German version is that it was all a big accident; Yeh! OK!) Any way the place has been left untouched since then as a sort of monument to the dead, I got some great pictures of the place but they are for another section of this forum. As I was leaving I noticed a mass of red in a hole in a crumbling wall and when I moved closer I could see it was a load of Fire Beetles, I find the patterns on their shells very interesting and they take many differant forms;does anyone know if they mean anything?

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Very colourful beetles and the 2nd shot is a damselfly. Damseflies rest with their wings closed, Dragonflies with their wings open.

Dave

edit: You might want to edit your post though to change it from Germans to "German soldiers". It sort of implies that all Germans approved of atrocities like this. Being part German, I'm a bit touchy about the war.

Hehe, I've never seen one of those fire beetles before, They look like they're wearing back to front red waiscoats (if you know what I mean). Nice shot of the damsel.


(I'm stayin out of the Politics )

Excellent pics- love the fire beetles but where's the fire?
Brian V.