Many beetles are dark-colored and go about their business in the underbrush, unseen by human eyes. Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindela sexguttata), on the other hand, are hard to miss—their metallic-green bodies sparkle as they perch in the middle of the sun-lit forest trails on which I have been hiking in recent weeks.
The beetle’s common name refer to the six small white spots on the beetle’s metallic-green elytra (the beetle’s hardened wing cases), although the number of spots is somewhat variable—I think I count eight spots on this individual. As I was doing a bit of research, I stumbled upon the fact that elytra is the plural form of elytron—I think that I have almost always seen the word used in the plural form and the spell-check highlights elytron as an unknown word.
It is often hard to get a shot of one of these beetles, because they are skittish and often fly away as I bend down to photograph them. For this photo, I was fortunate that the beetle chose to perch on a trunk of a tree at eye-level and no contortions were therefore required on my part.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
A beautiful bug, Mike! When I zoomed in on photo, I believe I could see him looking at you! 😂 Spell checker, doesn’t know everything, right? 🤣
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Thanks, Mitzy. I was fortunate to be able to capture some pretty good detail on the beetle, including its eye. As for spellcheck, I use it sometimes, but selectively ignore it at other times. 🙂
Mike,
I remember watching a couple of these at a campground years ago. Flitty is the perfect description of their behavior. Nice capture on the image.
Wow Mike! Never saw one before! Very nice!
Wonderful close-up, Mike. I love these little guys, not only for their beauty, but they are a gardener’s friend, eating pests.
Kind of hard to miss that one. Nice share, Mike.
When we walked in the woods at Edge of Appalachia I thought of you. Saw a flash of bright green! Not long enough to know if it was a fly or beetle. And here you are posting and identifying same green color. Uncanny!!!
Thanks, Molly, for thinking of me. It may well have been the beetle that I featured today or possibly a similarly colored sweat bee like the one in this posting from a couple of years ago. https://michaelqpowell.com/2018/08/03/metallic-green-sweat-bee/
Such an outrageous and wonderfully flamboyant color! Quite similar to that of the emerald, agapostemon, and cuckoo wasps.
I hadn’t thought of the sweat bees, but you are absolutely right about how their coloration and metallic sheen match that of the Six-spotted Tiger Beetle. Here is a quick example that shows an Agapostemon bee and a side-by-side comparison shows the now obvious similarities. https://michaelqpowell.com/2018/08/03/metallic-green-sweat-bee/
Thanks, Mike, it seems I missed that one. And what a fine reminder of high summer!
That is a shining beauty and wonderfully photographed, Mike! The colour is amazing.
Thanks, Pete. I was afraid when I was photographing the beetle what I would not be able to capture the metallic sheen and beautiful green color, but it worked out better than expected.