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Fun Facts About Bessbugs and Beetles
Bessbugs • The bessbug has many names—patent-leather beetle, betsy bug, bessy bug, bess beetle and short-horned stag beetle. The true scientific name for most bessbugs that live in the United States is Odontotaenius disjunctus. Bessbugs are beetles. • Bessbugs live in forests, in rotting logs. They eat rotting wood. • Bessbug larvae can't digest wood, so their parents chew it up for them and mix it with their own dung. This makes a food for the larvae that is full of germs, which are good for bessbugs. • Male bessbugs feed their larvae. This is very unusual. Only one other male beetle and one other kind of male insect—the termite—help their larvae. • Bessbugs make soft, squeaky sounds by rubbing their wings against their abdomens. Bessbug larvae make softer noises by rubbing their tiny legs against their abdomens. Sounds are important to bessbugs because they live in the dark, inside logs. • Bessbug pupas look a little bit like butterfly chrysalises or moth cocoons. • Bessbugs survive freezing winters by making a kind of antifreeze in their bodies. • There are about 300 different kinds of bess beetles in the world. • In the United States, bessbugs live in forests in Texas and all states east of the Mississippi River. Different kinds of bess beetles live in tropical forests in South America, Africa, India, Asia and Australia. • The Tukanoan Indians, who live in Colombia, call bess beetles yayaru. The Tukanoans eat bess beetles because they are a good source of protein. Beetles • Beetles are insects that have —a complete metamorphosis, including egg, larva, pupa and adult —a pair of hard wings, called elytra, that protect another pair of soft, fragile wings These two facts together set beetles apart from all other insects. • Scientists call beetles coleoptera. Scientists who study beetles are called coleopterists. Coleoptera means "hard sheath." This describes beetles' elytra. • There are more kinds of beetles than any other animal—at least 350,000. Some scientists think that there may be as many as 7,000,000 kinds of beetles! • Why are there so many beetles? Maybe because there is so much food for them on the Earth. Most beetles eat dung or dead plants or dead animals. They are called decomposers. • Some beetles eat smaller insects, bugs, snails, slugs or fungus. For example, ladybugs eat tiny insects called aphids. • Other beetles eat live plants. Sometimes we call these beetles "pests" because they are eating plants that are important to humans. • Beetles are very, very important to human beings and other living things. Without beetles, the Earth would soon be buried in rotting dead stuff. • The Ancient Egyptians worshipped beetles because they turned dung into rich soil. • Scientists believe that the biggest insect is a black-and-brown beetle called Titanus giganteus. It can grow to be 17cm long (more than 6 1/2 inches). It lives in Brazil and French Guiana. • Children in Japan love stag beetles. They buy them and collect them and keep them as pets. • Fireflies aren't really flies. They are flying beetles! Glowworms are beetle larvae. |
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