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Saturday 2 June 2012

Beetle

Comprising more than 50% of the animal kingdom, beetles number some 370,000 named species, with many not yet described.

A stag beetle lives underground for five years before emerging to mate for a few weeks, then die.

Ladybirds are actually beetles and their correct name is The Ladybird Beetle.

The biggest bug in the world is the Goliath Beetle which is about the size of your fist and can weigh as much as 3-4 ounces (100 ml).

Supposedly, beetles tastes like apples.


Dung beetles can bury 250 times their own weight in dung in one day.

If dung beetles disappeared from the plains of Africa, its human inhabitants would be up to their waists in excrement within a month.

Until 2013, scientists believed that only humans, birds, and seals used stars to navigate. But in 2013, they discovered that when the moon isn’t visible, dung beetles use the Milky Way to navigate back home. They are the only insect known to orient itself by the galaxy.

The bombardier beetle can shoot boiling-hot, foul-smelling liquid from a gland that can rotate 270 degrees.

Hercules beetles of Central and South America can lift 850 times their own weight.


Melanophila beetles (known as fire chaser beetles) are able to sense forest fires from 80 miles (129 kms) away and seek them out since burnt wood is the source of nutrition for their young.

Anophthalmus hitleri is a blind beetle found only in five caves in Slovenia. Named after Adolf Hitler in 1933, it is now endangered due to collectors of Nazi memorabilia.

A beetle called the Cromwell Chafer (Prodontria lewisi) can be found on a small field outside of the town of Cromwell in the South Island of New Zealand. It is found nowhere else on the planet. The entire species can be found on a 81 hectare nature reserve.

The Natural History Museum in London has 22,000 draws filled with beetles

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