Darwin's Beetles Spar Off
irFsY01l0MA • 2018-05-23
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Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
[Applause]
so there's an animal with an incredible
weapon the male Darwin's beetle from
Chile has an enormous set of pincers for
its size these specially adapted jaws
can make up half their body length that
is one of the biggest weapons of any
living animal ever
they've got mouth parts or mandibles
that have been in long gated so that
they have these curved arcing pincers
and the pincers and these males can be
even longer than the rest of the body of
the animal so the males are fighting
battles with rival males so these are
two males sparring and facing off
against each other trying to fling each
other from the tree
for the loser it's a long way down but
what's the point of this epic battle
beetles like this fight over wounds sort
of marks or Nick's on the sides of a
tree where SAP won't lose out and drip
down the side
females feed on that SAP by guarding the
SAP a male beetle gains access to
females so that means that if you're a
male and you can hold on to that real
estate you have opportunities to mate
with the females when they come into
feed
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file updated 2026-02-13 12:58:39 UTC
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