I truly love beetles, and though I am not even close to being an expert on the identity of local members of the order Coleoptera, I really enjoy trying to make their acquaintances, most often through a thorough and lengthy perusal of Art Evans's masterwork, Beetles of Eastern North America. A couple of years ago, my good friends at the Princeton University Press sent me a review copy, and I had the equally good fortune of interviewing the author for my account. The book continues to get frequent workouts, and when I spotted this remarkable coleopteran, which I knew was a kind of Carrion Beetle, I made a quick sprint to the family Silphidae and started reading. Because of the pattern on its Charlie Brown shirt, er, elytra, I'm leaning towards Nicrophorus tomentosus, a.k.a. the Golden-necked Burying Beetle. The mites that are coming along for the ride are much harder to ID, and there are no good field guides that I'm aware of, but a search of online wisdom suggests that the hitchhikers are members of the Poecilochirus clan. I'll have to call in the experts on that one.