Something Lurks!

On my way home from work, I called in to the area around the Merthyr tunnel, in Cwmbach. A few odds and sods, but not a great deal, but at one point I caught the unmistakable whiff of a Common Stink-horn and after five minutes as a human (honestly) bloodhound, I managed to track this down, lurking suggestively in the undergrowth - the fungus, not me... well okay, me too.

Not far away, in a patch of Creeping Buttercup, I came across three of these handsome beetles. They seem to be the longhorn beetle Judolia cerambyciformis, which is apparently found visiting flowers as an adult, but otherwise, apart from the supposition that the larvae feed in wood, the rest of its life cycle is a bit of a mystery. They aren't a patch on your Bee Beetle, Martin, but they made my day.