We, as naturally aeronautically-challenged beings, romantasise the freedom and serenity of flight, often without any consideration for the supreme physical effort required to achieve that first gravity-defying moment at lift-off. The Cerambycid Longhorn Beetles do a stellar job of de-romantasising the act of getting airborne…..
idk if y’all americans and that know this, but in Australia instead of snow at christmas we get these lil shiny bugs everywhere and they’re attracted to the christmas lights and we call them christmas beetles
and despite being australian they don’t bite or anything they just crawl around on your hand and it’s such a good and pure feeling and yeah
(don’t worry, the other one is fine, beetles are real tough and they do this sort of thing in the wild all the time. Only, in the wild, loser pretty often falls out of a tree.)
Just in case you’d forgotten about them, the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders would like to take this opportunity to remind you about the existence of the incredibly enormous Titan beetle, aka Titanus giganteus. Japanese entomologist Munetoshi Maruyama happened upon this colossal creature while studying insects in South America.
“Here comes the star of the show. While I was looking up at this eudaemonia troglophylla (a species of moth) flying overhead, I heard a loud noise and something hitting the curtain. When I turned around I couldn’t believe my eyes; it was a titan beetle. I immediately went to grab it and was taken aback by how large it was. I couldn’t help but let out a shout.”
The largest known Titan beetle on record measure 6.6 inches long. Maruyama’s beetle measured 6.3 inches long, making it a very impressive specimen indeed. They’re elusive insects that usually only venture out into the open in search of mates on particularly hot, rainy days or at night, so happening upon this one in the middle of the day was an exceptionally rare experience.
I had a lucky some years ago to play a bit with living one 🙂 really splendid longhorns:)
An amazing thing about these is that we have never found their larvae and know nothing about their life cycle. What we have found are tunnels in rotten wood that would imply a larval stage at least two inches thick and maybe up to a foot long.
Why DO these bugs kick ass tho?? Please enlighten me I’m curious now
beetles make up 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animals,coleoptera is the largest order of the animal kingdom with over 400,000 species, compared to 10,000 species of birds and mammals. thats a lot of fucking cool ass bugs. there’s a saying that goes “1 in every 4 animals is a beetle” because there are So Many Of The Fuckers. they’re found on every continent except Antarctica and are very good at adapting to any environment, and many act as essential decomposes by eating leaf litter/dead trees/fungus/carrion/dung. they’ve been around since before the super continent Pangaea broke up, meaning they’ve been around for 270 million years, which also means they’ve survived 3 mass extinction events (Permian-Triassic: 95% of all living beings dead, worst extinction event; Triassic-Jurassic extinction; Cretaceous-Paleogene, what took out the dinosaurs, 76% of all living things dead)
and they look kick ass!!
Hercules beetle,( Dynastes hercules) largest beetle!! can grow up to 16cm long!
harlequin beetle, (Acrocinus longimanus)the one pictured is a male; males will have extremely long front legs (females as do as well comparatively to other beetles but males are like, twice as long) and we have no idea why. we think its because of sexual advertising. long sexy legs
The Humble Dung Beetle (Copris lunaris), dung beetles are actually one of the few insects that exhibit parental care! both male and female dung beetles care for their larvaeas their children eat the shit theyve rolled up. a loving family
TIL the Dung Beetle is the only known insect that uses the Milky Way as a reference to move in a straight line despite not being able to see individual stars. Scientists initially thought they were using the moon, however they still moved in a straight line on moonless nights.
I fucking hate space, I hate the universe, I hate science and I hate when shit like this happens. how in the fuck does a wholr species of fucking insects know to look up at the sky at all let alone actually follow the direction of a whole fucking galaxy. why the shit was I even born. why do I exist. this pisses me the fuck off. I wish I was dead
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