Bustling Beetles
There are more beetles than any other animal. In fact, one out of every four animals is a beetle. Some common beetles are fire flies and lady bugs.
• Beetles are one of the most popular pets in Japan and can be bought in many department stores!
• The rhinoceros beetle is the strongest animal and is capable of lifting 850 times its own weight.
• Without dung beetles, the earth would be piled high with manure. A small pile of Elephant dung can attract 16,000 dung beetles of various shapes and sizes, who between them can eat and/or bury that dung completely in just two hours. One dung beetle can bury 250 times its own weight in a night.
Dung beetles are also known as scarabs, along with rhinoceros and Hercules beetles. There are over 300,000 species in this large family and many have even been revered as having magical powers in ancient times.
The dung beetle is nature's answer to an over clogged sewer system. The beetles collect, roll, and bury the dung of animals in many ways. Once the dung beetles have buried the dung ball, the ball becomes their food source, providing everything the dung beetles need to survive until the next pile of manure is located. This is important since the dung beetle eats more food than their body weight a day. Quick--who wants a menu?
How do these guys care for the little ones? When it's time for a new arrival, both the male and female scarabs roll a large ball of dung. They work together to bury the precious ball, and then the female lays an egg in it after reshaping the ball underground. The larva uses the ball as his first food source and will feed on it while he lives underground. Only after the larva emerges from the pupal stage does it make its way above ground.
Ancient Egyptians believed that the dung beetle represented immortality. The Egyptians would watch the beetles roll their dung balls and take it underground. Then, the beetles would come back above ground. To the Egyptians, the ball of dung was the earth rotating and represented years. When the beetles went underground, it was thought that they died. Coming back to the ground's surface became a resurrection, or rebirth, and therefore meant that the scarabs were immortal.
This common, but often unseen beetle, is an aquatic insect. There are over 500 kinds of diving beetles in North America alone. Worldwide, there are more than 5,000 types of diving beetles! These insects live mainly in the water and breathe from an air bubble under the wing covers that they take in when on the surface. Some of these beetles are tiny but others can be as large as 1.5 inches.
Unlike the dung beetles, the diving beetles prefer to hunt for their food. They eat mainly other water insects and larvae, but they have been known to eat small fish as well. Adult diving beetles catch their prey live and tear it apart with their mandibles. The larvae hang out near the surface of the water and catch prey with their pincers. They use a tactic like many insects and spiders: the larvae inject their meal with their own juices, causing their prey to dissolve on the inside. Who's ready for a drink?
The diving beetles are not normally known to feed on dead creatures that they didn't kill. However, when food is in short supply, they quickly get over who killed it and simply enjoy their dinner like good little beetles.
Tiger beetles aren't the least bit shy. They are among the most obvious and most seen of all beetles. They are also some of the most difficult to collect, if a bug collection is in your dreams. The tiger beetles are swift and more alert than most other beetles. They also are no scaredy-cats about taking flight. At the slightest indication that you or an enemy intends to try to capture them, they take to the air in order to escape.
The tiger beetles are known for the ambush tactic in hunting for food. They lie in wait then pounce, much like the tigers of the jungle. Their main food supply is other unsuspecting insects, and the larvae are just as good at hunting as the adults.
The tiger beetles have been listed as Threatened in some areas under the Endangered Species Act. Much of their habitat is gone, and they are trying to find their place in new environments. Tiger beetles need undisturbed sand environments in order to survive. Four-wheeling sports and human disturbance has taken much of these areas away from the tiger beetle. This means, as they spend nearly two years in larvae stage, that many never reach maturity. Once they are out of the larvae stage, their adulthood only lasts six weeks.
The Hercules beetles are named after the Greek god Hercules because of their size and strength. They can grow up to 8 inches long and lift massive amounts. This species of rhinoceros beetles are gentle giants and don't use their horns to defend themselves. They use their wings for that.
The male and female Hercules beetles look so different that many mistake them for two different species. The male beetle has the horns and are shiny with a beautiful olive green coloring. The females have no horns and have beaded wing cases covered in a layer of reddish hairs.
These giants live in Northern America and are vegetarians. They feed on tree sap in the wild, but will feed on apples, pears, and cantaloupe in captivity. Their preferred habitat includes lots of shade near vegetation.
