What kind of bug did I see?

[MonkeyFunk]

Gah, there's no good way to find out on the 'net.

I was walking out to the car and on the sidewalk was a big black bug. Sort of like an ant, but very big - about an inch long, and shiny black. Didn't appear to have wings like a beetle. The odd part was the abdomen - it was long and thin, and it he kept curling it back up over his body like a scorpion tail.

It was walking oddly, and seemed agitated. But the abdomen curled back up over itself was so weird - any ideas?

[Heidi]

1. Rove beetle (Devil's Coach Horse)? CAUTION: bug pics!!!

Except for the thin abdomen, that's what it sounds like. We have something similar here. I think there's a variety common around Los Angeles known as Staphylinus olens.

[MonkeyFunk]

2. holy crap, you're good!

That's it!

Thank you! I'd never seen one before.

[Heidi]

3. I'm not so good. I'm just scared crapless of many kinds of bugs.

:scared:

I had one of those in my studio the other day, and it took every once of my courage to give it a ride to the great outdoors. :scared:

[MonkeyFunk]

4. I'd be scared to touch it!

It looked "stingy". But evidently, they're pretty harmless - except for one species that has a toxin in its bite, but no stinger.

[krispos42]

5. Wow, bulls-eye on the first shot

Damn!

[Rhiannon12866]

6. You are good, Heidi! I was just thinking that it was a carpenter ant...

And the bugs in my house all get a ride outside, too... Caught a moth tonight, and I rescue spiders from my SO. The only ones I don't mess with are wasps, which I shoo, but mosquitoes I swat, since they can bite me and could carry heartworm to the dogs. My mother says I must be Buddhist, LOL.:D

[Lorien]

7. Ah, Karl Rove in his true form! n/t

[MonkeyFunk]

8. I said "thin abdomen"

because it wasn't short and round, like an ant's. But I'm still impressed at your bug-sleuthing skills.

[My Good Babushka]

9. I was going to say earwig, but I don't think they curl up too much.

Anyway, I hate them.