Beetle beetle - titanium among insects

Have you ever wondered which insect is the greatest on the planet? It is known that the largest of the mammals is the whale. Among the terrestrial animals there is an elephant. And who is the champion among the beetles? Entomologists still argue who to award the palm of primacy: a beetle or a woodcutter. The whole point is how to approach this issue.

Hercules mostly all reach 17 cm. Most lumberjacks have a length of 15-16 cm (together with jaws), but sometimes individuals come up to twenty and even twenty-two centimeters! Just imagine: the beetle-titan beetle reaches the size of a guinea pig! There are people who panically fear insects, imagine their horror at the sight of such a giant.

However, not only the size of the horror of this insect. The woodcutter-titanium is armed with two powerful chewers, which, if desired, easily, like nippers, break a pencil. In addition, this powerful monster can fly and, to top it off, it leads a nocturnal life. It is good though that his temper is calm and peaceful. But still unpleasant, when at night in the jungle you sit on the head of someone the size of a hamster and with a tusk, like a rhinoceros. Someone at the same time falls into a state of shock, and someone is ready to pay for the dried shell of such a giant to a thousand American dollars.

The beetle beetle lives throughout the Amazon river basin. He is met in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Bolivia and in the middle of Brazil. It is found in wet longline forests. It is extremely sensitive to light and does not fall into the light traps that entomologists arrange. It is also difficult to study a beetle because it spends most of its life in the state of a larva, and the giant is only 3-5 weeks old. Yes, and the nightlife of titanium plays into the hands of scientists. In the daytime the insect falls asleep in rotten stumps or under the foliage, and with the onset of twilight crawls up the plants to spread the wings on the dais and fly up.

The beetle beetle is also interesting because, despite its terrible chewing, he does not eat anything. The nutrients accumulated during the youth period (when they were larvae) are enough to last about a month, lay eggs and die. Scientists studying this insect can not come to an agreement on how the beetle larvae look. About how caterpillars develop, too, nothing is known, because they never caught the eye of scientists. However, the Amazon Indians, who occasionally consume the beetle larvae, say that the caterpillars are approximately 25-36 centimeters in length, and they should be sought in the roots or on the stumps of dead or dying old trees. Puppet caterpillars also become in the soil.

How long the lumberman beetle lives in the state of the larva and how many days it spends in the puppet, no one knows. Indians were not interested in this issue, and scientists can not find these larvae. However, more or less studied adult insects. As already mentioned, only a few grow to these giants. The largest specimens are females. Their shell is brown-brown or resin-brown, and on both sides of the pronotum one can see three menacing pointed spikes. These combat "decorations" serve only to defiantly repel enemies. Above the emarginate eyes of the beetle are the whiskers of almost half the body of the insect.

The beetle beetle is an extremely rare insect. Due to the fact that Aborigines use the caterpillars of this giant for food, their population is rapidly declining. The beetle has relatives, however, more modest growth. However, they are on the brink of extinction. In Fiji, the aborigines completely "ate" barbel - the endemic of these places. His specimens can now be seen only in the dried form in some collections. In the middle zone of a distant relative of the Amazonian giant can be found in the Crimea, in the face of the Crimean ground beetle.