To panic about what the hell this is in my garden? Pic attached

[Helppooo]

what on earth is this? Is it dangerous?

It's a may bug, horrible noisy things, hang around trees and get stuck in your hair!

Need a banana for scale ….

It's called a billy witch round our way.

In fairness I have never known MN to be stumped.

The volume of knowledge on here is really quite outstanding.

Well this is very useful! I was reading The Famous Five to my daughter tonight and at one point a "large cockchafer" (ooh err) flew straight into the window and stunned itself... And I had no clue what it was and thought maybe it was a bird?? Thanks now I know! 🪲

It's what is known as Scotland as a " beastie". This term covers every living creature and is universally understood. If you want to be fancy you can use " wee beastie" for anything from an ant to a hedgehog, or " big beastie" for anything from.a dog to an elephant.
A" fucking humongous beastie" is usually a spider.

Cockchafer aka may bug. They're becoming increasingly rare so please don't hurt it.
You only get then in certain areas of the UK.
As others have said they're sticky.

What’s huge? How many cm?

Look how cute they are!

Looks like a brain eating zombie bug to me.
<<nods sagely>>
It's been nice knowing you op.

An almost right on time May bug!

I've had them in the house before, one came down the chimney with a crash. I'm convinced these were the things that came in our kitchen when I was a teen as well because I remember they had a shell. I wouldn't go in the kitchen until my parents had got rid of them! Then I never saw them again until the past few years where we tend to see the odd one and I found out they were called cockchafers 😁

They are harmless I've even seen vids of people handling them-I've not been able to bring myself to do that yet! Also terrified because like a PP said, they can apparently get stuck in your hair 😱

Some kind of beetle. I’m not phased by bettles, saw a beautiful one once in Latin America, it looked like an emerald.

He's a cute may bug love to see them signs of summer. My youngest was petrified of them though.

I had a (small) swarm of them once, all trying to get into the house. Was quite scary as they are big and noisy!

This reminds me of the first time I saw a stag beetle in my garden. It was rearing up and looking threatening 😂😂 I had no idea wtf it was.

Its a cockshafer aka a maybug. Totally harmless but also enormous. The first time I ever saw one it was it was going crazy in our bathroom. I shut the door and ran for assistance!

Some sort of beetle. Completely harmless.

They're huge. First time me and my friend came across one of these it was in her hair. Gave us quite a scare when we had no idea beetles grew that big in the UK.

Not a cockroach a kind of beetle

Aww, they're fluffy! It's why I like moths, they're fluffy too. 😊

We get them round here. I’m not mad about them coming into the house because they fly about blunderingly and bump into things but fortunately DH is fearless and will pick them up and put them outside.

That was my thought - called May Bugs because, guess what? they hatch in May 😂

The chafer part might be related to Käfer (beetle in German).