ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – If you can’t beetle ’em, join ’em.

Scientists and Acadia National Park staff are looking for volunteers willing to help count, collect and classify beetles during a 24-hour entomological expedition this weekend at Schoodic Point.

The Beetle Bio Blitz will run from 3 p.m. Saturday to 3 p.m. Sunday, starting at the Schoodic Education and Research Center and branching out to all corners of the peninsula.

The outing follows similar scientific events held at the park in previous years. Last summer, professional and amateur naturalists collected 145 species of moths and 18 species of butterflies in the Maine Lepidoptera Blitz. The season before, they counted ants.

This year, the focus will be on beetles. The intention, said David Manski, chief of resource management for Acadia, is to get better acquainted with the bug species that can be found inside the park and to get people interested in insects.

“Insects tend to be a group of animals that we, the National Park Service, know little about,” he said.

Beetle hunters will use a variety of collection methods, from light traps to sweep nets to ground searches. The bugs will be taken to a lab space at the resource center, where taxonomists will count and identify them.

Some of the beetles will be released after the blitz but others will have to be dissected in order to be properly identified.

“It is a lot of work but it is a good scientific endeavor,” Manski said.

The public is invited to visit the center to observe the collection.

To volunteer, call Manski at 288-8720 before Friday.