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You Crazy Little Abal-Abal Hmmm... that moment when : You think someone is knocking at the door, you open it and get hit in the face by a flying beetle lol.

Well, hello there lovely people. This blog was kind of a last-minute thought, and not sure how interesting it will be to most lol. I just remember a beetle (not a car) story that happened some years ago. The photo above is my daughter holding a beetle when she was still 4 years old I think. My husband got her to no longer fear Abal-Abal beetles and started bringing them all into the bedroom. She just put 2 Abal-Abal and one June Bug on the bed lol. She has carried one Abal-Abal around for the last 4hrs lol. Silly kid. So yeah, this little critter you see here is a common beetle here and is one of the most popular beetles in the Philippines. It's called **"Salagubang"** in Tagalog and called "**Abal-Abal"** in my Ilokano dialect. They are some sort of creepy crawlies. In the U.S. they look a lot like what they call a **"June Bug",** although these are not green. They're kind of brownish-gray-black combo in color. There are diverse Salagubang or Abal-abal that can be found here in the Philippines. Sorry, that's the only photo I found in my albums. Maybe I saved them somewhere so...

The Story Goes Like This I remember these little booger Abal-abals were crawling on a sack of tiny tomatoes (cherry tomatoes) we put outside the house to be dried so that we could plant them later. We have a little garden of veggies in our backyard. So here is what I found - a little crazy though, they were gobbling on these tomatoes like candies. Hey, that's fine with me, gobble away guys lol. But then the next day, I went outside and looked and the Abal-Abals were lying dead on their backs all around the bag. There were about 6 of them belly up! Now, you would think that other beetles would see this and say, **"Oh no... not me! I ain't going near THEM tomatoes!"** But no! There were 4 more of them climbing around on them, and later, I found them outside the bag on their backs too. Silly little boogers.

Now here is something you may find a bit of a shocker especially to my foreign friends. Maybe. (It certainly shocked my husband too - he's American). In some parts of the Philippines, like my province La Union, these guys are fried as a snack. Kind of a finger food thing you dip in vinegar. You can either fry the beetle or the larva (looks the same without the shell). I remember when I was a little, my cousins and I used to catch them and tie their bodies to the yarn, rolling our arms like doing some kind of arm exercises. We were amused looking at them fly. My grandma used to fry them in a huge clay pot too. I have tried it a few times, and I thought then it was very yummy. Ooops! Don't you roll your eyes on me. That's rude lol. Bon appetite! `Disclaimer:` `(If you are a Vegan/vegetarian and you find this post offensive, please respect our culture, ignore, leave my post and move along. Thank you.)` It's rainy season here and it's their season too. I just saw one yesterday, but I forgot to take a photo. It was raining real hard. We used to catch them all the time, but their legs are thorny and they are strong, so you would inevitably drop them. They're very intimidating and they hiss like angry cats too lol. I really don't mind any of them, even giant spiders as long as I walk up "on" them. What I hate is the surprise giant bug right in front of your face. Like you're in the bathroom, and you look to the wall next to you, and there is a huge beetle hissing or a spider the size of your hand 6 inches from your head lol. But, hey! I will take all of that over mosquitos. These tiny knuckleheads feed on you while you sleep and you wake up looking like you have measles or chickenpox or something.

Have you seen a Salagubang/Abal-abal? Does it scare you? Have you tried eating them? Sorry, too many questions. Good evening once again, and that's all for today. I think I saw another one outside the window. Hold on a second lol.

One love @Bloghound July 21, 2021 8:47 pm Philippines (The photo is my own and taken by me)

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