Woolly Darkling Beetle

Eleodes osculans · Order: Coleoptera · Family: Tenebrionidae

Also called: Wooly Darkling Beetle

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Woolly Darkling Beetle
Photo: unknown, CC0

The woolly darkling beetle is 12 to 16 mm long. It lives in wooded areas and chaparral along the coast of southern and central California and in Baja California.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Adults measure 12 to 16 mm in length.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it lives

Found in wooded areas and chaparral on the coast of southern and central California.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it comes from

Its range includes coastal southern and central California and Baja California.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 3 of 51 states and DC. Most records: California, Arizona, Colorado.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: native in North America; native in United States. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Questions people ask

How big is a woolly darkling beetle?

It is 12 to 16 mm long.

Source: Wikipedia

Where does the woolly darkling beetle live?

In wooded areas and chaparral along the coast of southern and central California and in Baja California.

Source: Wikipedia

Same family (Tenebrionidae)

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleodes_osculans

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.