Meet the Beetle That Is the Chemist of the Animal Kingdom
Ants rule. Over the past 50 million years, these insects have come to dominate terrestrial ecosystems, says Joe Parker, assistant professor of biology and biological engineering at Caltech. As a result, anything that lives on land must either coexist with ants or be able to fight them off.
Beetles, for example, typically have hardened elytra, or wing cases that cover their abdomen to protect them from attacking ants. But the 64,000 species of soil-dwelling rove beetles do not. Instead, they had to come up with a different type of shield.
“They’re kind of the chemists of the animal kingdom because of this modified body plan.”
“Rove beetles have these really short elytra that expose the abdominal segments,” Parker says in the video. “This enables the abdomen this kind of flexibility in the beetle, the capacity to move rapidly through soil environments chasing down other arthropods. But it left the body physically unprotected, so multiple lineages have countered that by investing, instead of physical protection, in chemical defense mechanisms. They’re kind of the chemists of the animal kingdom because of this modified body plan.”
In a recent study, Parker used the rove beetle to crack a fascinating question about how organs arise. Read about it here.