Mimicry or Puppetry? The Beetle That is a Termite.
- Jace Porter
- Jun 26
- 2 min read
Somewhere in Australia’s Northern Territory, there’s a beetle taking mimicry to the extreme. Meet Austrospirachtha carrijoi: a Termite Puppeteer.
Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo recently described this tiny rove beetle (Staphylinidae) with an abdomen that’s been completely reshaped by evolution to look exactly like a termite. It’s not just a general resemblance; it’s an uncannily detailed termite decoy, complete with fake legs, antennae, and segmented body parts. The beetle’s real head is tucked underneath the fake one, like it’s wearing a hyper-realistic termite costume, perfectly sculpted from its own body. This type of abdominal enlargement is called physogastry.
And it works. The beetle can stroll right into a termite colony, and the termites, who rely on touch and chemical signals to "see", seem to accept it as one of their own. It’s likely the beetle also mimics the colony’s scent by using its cuticular hydrocarbons (the lipid layer secreted on their exoskeleton that keeps insects from drying out) to absorb the unique chemical scent of the colony it infiltrates.
With tiny mouth parts, it's thought that this termitophilous beetle is actually a Kleptoparasite, meaning it steals another insect's food. Termites feed pre-digested food to their colony-mates, a process called trophallaxis, so it's thought that this beetle sneaks in and just waits for one of the real termites to feed it.
It’s hard to wrap your head around just how strange and brilliant all of this is.
But here’s what’s even more incredible: This is just one species. One beetle. One story. There are millions more insects out there we haven’t even met yet, and the one's we have met each have stories to tell that are just as fascinating, if not moreso. This is just one of over 66,000 species of rove beetle alone! Scientists estimate that only about 10% of insect species have been discovered! That’s not just a staggering statistic, that’s a massive, buzzing, crawling, flying universe we haven’t even begun to map.
Despite this, insects represent a frontier of science that is still vastly under-explored, with research primarily focusing on disease vectors and agriculturally significant insects... in other words, insect control. This is why, at the Global Entomology Coalition, we're NOT on a mission to control insects. We’re not here to manage, exterminate, or exploit them for humans; we’re here to know them. To uncover their stories. To bring their unseen worlds into the light. Exploration and discovery is at the core of our research priorities, because the more we look, the more we realize: Insects aren’t just weird. They’re wondrous. Full of behaviors, chemical compounds, defenses, physiologies, and unique ecological roles we haven't even scratched the surface of.
As you can see, we have so much to learn and discover, and so little time to find them before they're gone: we just need to pay a little more attention to the animals beneath our feet and change the way we as a species judge and coexist with our planet's most numerous, and most fascinating creatures.
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