Chauliognathus pensylvanicus
Jason Hill · CC-BYHarmless. No bite, no sting, and nothing on it that irritates skin. It is a pollinator and a predator of aphids, and it is worth having.
Across the eastern and central United States, and common throughout.
Flowers in gardens, meadows and field margins, especially goldenrod.
Adults late summer into autumn, peaking with goldenrod.
Adults feed on pollen and nectar and are useful pollinators, and they will also take aphids while they are there. The larvae live in soil and leaf litter and hunt other insects. They are slow, easy to approach and make no attempt to avoid people, which is part of why they get handled and therefore part of why the blister beetle confusion matters.
Nothing. If you want more of them, leave goldenrod standing in late summer — it is the single most reliable place to find them, and the same planting supports a long list of other pollinators.
No. They have no interest in people and nothing to bite with that matters.
The neck. A blister beetle's plate behind the head is distinctly narrower than both its head and its body; a soldier beetle's is broad. Soldier beetles are also usually yellow-and-black rather than uniformly matte black.
Goldenrod in late summer is both a food source and a meeting place — they feed and mate on the same flower heads, which is why you find them in numbers rather than singly.
Identify another animal from a photo or return to the Beetles guide.
Last reviewed 2026-07-30. We identify, we don’t diagnose — what we can and can’t tell you.