#charcoal beetle

[anthropocenesketchbook]

Now that fire season is year-round in California, the Thomas Fire is out but there’s a new fire burning near Bishop. Here’s a fire-chasing beetle. They have infrared sensors under their legs that lead them to fires, where they are sure to find freshly burned trees in which to deposit their eggs, and this means plenty of food for the larvae to eat without encountering any of the live trees’ defenses.

[drhoz]

There is a beetle that, instead of fleeing like most other animals when confronted with fire, spreads its wings and flies in droves straight towards the inferno.

In fact, the jewel beetle, or black fire beetle as it's known in Canada, needs a blazing forest fire to breed.

[drhoz]

#652 - Merimna atrata - Fire Beetle

photo by John Read

Black jewel beetles notorious for arriving at campsites and running around in the ashes of campfires. That's because they only lay their eggs in freshly burned trees, and will arrive in their hundreds, seemingly out of nowhere, once a bushfire has past. The rest of the time they hurriedly shuffle off around to the far side of branches if they see you coming.

Like their relatives the North American Buprestid Melanophila - also called the Black Fire Beetle, Charcoal Beetle, or Fire-chaser - they have extraordinary sense organs, capable of detecting the infra-red radiation of fires from dozens of kilometres away in the case of Melanophila, although the design of the sense organs differs dramatically. Unfortunately, they're become something of a favourite with creationists who completely fail to see how such an organ could evolve naturally.

Tarcoola, South Australia

[invertebrate-science]

Charcoal beetles (Melanophila consputa) flock to forest fires and other intense heat sources. The females will lay their eggs in the charred wood and sometimes in their eagerness to lay will even burn themselves. These beetles are members of the genus Melanophila which are commonly known as fire chasers or fire beetles because of their egg laying tendencies. The beetles have special sensory pits on the thorax that can sense infrared radiation given off by fires. They can sense large fires from miles away and will arrive in swarms.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21842-zoologger-infraredsensing-beetles-born-in-fire.html