BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 12, 2021
There are thousands of different kinds of beetles in Maine. But only one — the blister beetle — produces a toxic chemical that causes skin blisters if touched, is fatal to livestock, was once a common treatment for warts and gave us the term “Spanish Fly” for aphrodisiacs. Blister beetles are toxic to sheep and cattle, but especially deadly to horses. All it takes is four to six grams of blister beetles to quickly kill an 1,100-pound horse. Lupine, asters and legumes are particular favorites of blister beetles. Jim Dill, pest management specialist with University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said, “If you do see the beetle and want to get rid of it, you can put on rubber gloves, hand pick them off the plants, dump them in a bucket of soapy water and when they are dead, dump them in a hole and bury them” because even in death, blister beetles retain the toxin in their corpses.