Black beetle?

[NTXGardenGuy]

What is this guy?

[Durgan]

Originally Posted by NTXGardenGuy

What is this guy?

At first look, it appears to be the ubiquitous Japanese Beetle. They have a bit of a blue colour, and usually there is more than one. A very nasty hungry insect. They literally skeltonize leaves of many plants. If that is the beast, I usually flick them into a container of water and squash on a flat hard surface. They move slowly and are relatively easy to hand pick.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?IPSJX 19 July 2011 Japanese Beetle.

The Japanese beetle appears every year. In my area it is as ubiquitous as the Colorado Potato Bug. My constant companions. This year the infestation of the adults is not too serious. They appear to be attacking only my four grape vines. They cannot be ignored, since a few can devastate the vegetation of the plants that they attack. I control by picking and flicking into a pail of water and/or spraying with malathion.

[GennyL]

Be very, very careful and use sparingly if at all. I won't use it....period.
Malathion-
http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research/

http://healthychild.org/issues/chemical-pop/malathion/

[NTXGardenGuy]

well I wasn't sure of what he was so I left him alone. No damage to the plants and haven't seen him since. Hmm maybe the neem oil works.

[bugpicker]

I'm leaning a little bit more towards stink bug. Can't really see it that well but it seems to have that shape. Have you looked at pics of each kind of bug?

[dragonfly7]

He could be a black ground beetle in which case he is a beneficial guy that eats caterpillars, cutworms, potato beetles, and slugs among others. It's hard to tell by the picture, how big was he?

[NTXGardenGuy]

I looked at the pic again and the pic makes him look kind of stink bugish but he definitely wasn't, he was more shiny black and round. The angle of the pic was bad. No problems he hasn't shown up in a while.