Friday, September 02, 2011

[jules' pics] Big Beetle

Beetle

A big green beetly thing in タマムシ  "jewel beetle" (Chrysochroa fulgidissima)

From Wikipedia:

"Tamamushi-iro

Since this bug has iridescent wings that glow lengthwise with different colors depending from the light angle, one cannot be sure about which color it exacly is. Therefore it gave rise to the expression tamamushi-iro (tamamushi color), in reference to a convoluted statement that can be interpreted in more ways than one. The term tamamushi-iro is used in the context of Japanese officialdom, when politicians or bureaucrats use language that is unclear."

[photographed on our neighbour's wall]

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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 9/02/2011 06:21:00 PM

4 comments:

William M. Connolley said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William M. Connolley said...

Nice, and the expression. I fixed up wiki.

I loathe the way blogger leaves the empty carcasses of deleted comments lying around.

David B. Benson said...

Wow!

andrewt said...

If you want more entomological cred (and who doesn't) you call it a buprestid rather than a green beetly thing. Well done putting a name to it - there are so many species of jewel beetle that putting a name to one is often far too difficult (assuming its even been described).