It’s our favorite time of year to showcase our creepy, crawly repertoire – fall! So beware! We’ve got a real-life, macabre “Beetlejuice” story for you. For insects called burying beetles, which are also known as carrion beetles, home is where the carcass is. These beetles make the most out of creatures whose time has run out. They are nature’s ultimate undertakers and decomposition experts. They have a caring, parenting side – and also have to make some tough choices. (You’ll have to watch our video to find out.) Hopeful burying beetle parents need to find a dead rodent or songbird to feed all the mouths they’re expecting. And they have some mites that help them! You’ll be surprised at how much goes on underground. We hope you enjoy seeing this industrious beetle’s strange dance between life and death in this week’s newsletter.
This Mite-y Beetle Buries the Dead to Start a Family
Image: Josh Cassidy/KQED
These mites love riding on burying beetles to the “underworld,” and the beetles let them. Why? Well, the mites protect the beetles’ offspring from other competition for the same meal.
Photo: Josh Cassidy/KQED
If you see a dead mouse moving, there’s most likely a burying beetle underneath it hard at work, trying to get that mouse buried as fast as possible. Believe it or not, one small beetle, working alone, can pull a whole mouse carcass underground for its babies!
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📡When small animal carcasses are just starting to decompose, the burying beetle sniffs them out with sensitive clubbed antennae.
🐁It’s a pro at burying small dead animals and making really good use of their remains.
🟤Alone, or with a partner, it rolls the carcass into a ball and preserves it with its own gut microbes.
🥚 The mama beetle lays her eggs next to the carcass, and as soon as the offspring hatch they’ve got a ready, rodent meal.
🐖The beetles let mites “piggyback” with them underground because the mites help by devouring fly eggs, which would otherwise grow into maggots hungry for rodent remains.
👶If it looks like there isn’t enough of a carcass for their babies to feast on, beetle moms eat some of their larvae so their remaining offspring will thrive.
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Name That Critter
Using a method called the “sugar shake,” beekeepers mix honeybees with confectioners’ sugar in a jar and shake them around gently to dislodge this nasty pest from the honeybees. What is the name of one of the worst enemies of the honeybee? Find out the answer at the bottom of this newsletter.
Explore the innovations that are helping protect our oceans. Join Deep Look Producer Rosa Tuirán in conversation with some of the world’s leading experts in ocean health and sustainability, including Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and scientists from both the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and SRI. This FREE event is on Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 5 p.m. at SRI’s PARC Campus in Palo Alto, California. Registration is required.
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We hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Thank you for your support! Until next week!
- The Deep Look Team and Science Teams
Deep Look is KQED’s award-winning wildlife video series that reveals the tiny dramas playing out in the natural world. We’re a member-supported YouTube series from KQED and PBS Digital Studios. Learn more.
KQED’s award-winning science coverage brings you the latest climate, environment and health news from the Bay Area and beyond. KQED Science is supported in part by the members of KQED. Learn more.
Varroa mite! Every year, up to half the honeybee colonies in the U.S. die. Varroa mites, honeybees’ ghastly parasites, are one of the main culprits. After hitching a ride into a hive, a mite mom hides in a honeycomb cell, where she and her offspring feed on a growing bee. But beekeepers and scientists are helping honeybees fight back. The photo in the Name That Critter section is of a varroa mite crawling inside a honeybee hive.
