The different ways of beetles

In their search for food and a safe place in which to lay their eggs, beetles have acquired strange ways of life.

In their search for food and a safe place in which to lay their eggs, some beetles have acquired strange ways of life. Some live in ants' and termites' nests, and even look like them. Some, living in caves or under huge boulders embedded in the earth, have lost their eyes. Others can no longer fly, and have their outer wings joined together. There are beetles that live between the tides on the seashore, and are underwater whenever the tide comes in.

There are beetles that are found only in museums, eating the stuffed specimens; or in hides and furs, or even in the corks of poison bottles. The young of one kind is protected by ants, which it rewards by producing a drop of sweet liquid. This is the aphid. Beetles have many enemies—other insects, including flies, bees and wasps, birds and mammals, fish and reptiles, and human beings. For protection, apart from their hard shells, some beetles are colored so that they look like moss or dead twigs.

Weevils pretend to be dead when touched, and drop to the ground, where they lie still with legs folded, looking like a seed or a grain of soil. The bombardier beetle gives off a puff of blistering smoke at its tail end, like a miniature explosion, when it is disturbed. Other beetles emit an unpleasant smell. The wasp beetle deceives its enemies by looking like a wasp. The flea beetle leaps away out of danger, ground beetles run or burrow, and tiger beetles run or fly away. Some beetles can make a noise, squeaking by rubbing different parts of their bodies together, as the longicorn beetles do, or by grinding their teeth, as cockchafer grubs do. They may do this as a warning to other beetles, or to attract their mates. Fireflies ("lightning bugs") attract their mates by flashing their lights on and off; certain tropical kinds even have a special light that they turn on when landing on a leaf!

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