It was the bug of my dreams. And there it was right in front of me, sat proudly atop a rotten tree trunk in a steamy Malaysian forest, as if someone had placed it there for me to find.
The mossy green softness of its perch contrasted with its hard and bright edges. Dappled sunlight filtered through the vast forest canopy to illuminate it like a stage spotlight.
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What is a trilobite beetle?
The trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus paradoxus) is undoubtedly an odd beetle. It is large and spectacular, growing to around 8cm in length, and its textured black body is decorated with bright orange-red spots and trim. It’s fair to say that it doesn’t really look much like a beetle at all but more like something from another time – as its common name suggests. However, it is not a trilobite or even closely related to one: Platerodrilus paradoxus evolved 200 million years after the last trilobite crawled the Earth. Yet it is a beetle of the most extraordinary kind.
What does a trilobite beetle look like?
A trilobite beetle has the obligatory six legs of an insect, each hooked at the tip, which it uses to shuffle along in combination with a sticky, disc-like pad on the underside of the tip of the abdomen. The legs are partially hidden by three massively expanded segments that make up the front part of the body. Between them, they cover and protect the beast’s thorax. The slighter and more flexible abdomen comprises smaller segments with mean-looking orange-red spikes. The overall effect is that the beetle has a somewhat medieval and threatening vibe.
After a few moments watching it ambling along, it occurred to me that what I thought was a short proboscis occasionally protruding from under the lip of the pointed front segment was actually the head of the insect in its entirety. Peering down, while holding my breath so as not to send it nervously back into hiding, I could see a pair of tiny, black beady eyes, a stumpy, retractable pair of antennae, and a small mouth. The head would peek out as the animal moved forward but on the slightest disturbance would retreat, tortoise-like, under its armour.
The lack of well-developed sensory organs suggests that neither sight nor feel are of great importance to this insect. But we still know so little about the mysterious Platerodrilus family.
Are trilobite beetles endangered?
We don’t know how many species of Platerodrilus there are (the current guess is between 20 and about 40), or the total population of trilobite beetles. We only know the male or female members of some species. And we have only a few scraps of insight into their life-cycles. Our poor knowledge is largely down to the fact that they can’t be kept very effectively in captivity – because we have no idea what to feed them.
What do trilobite beetles eat?
The lack of large biting mouthparts and their association with moist, decaying wood has led to a theory that trilobite beetles suck up a mushy soup of bacteria, fungus and algae. Some species have been seen to consume slime moulds.
What is the life cycle of a trilobite beetle?
The most bizarre characteristic of the trilobite beetle is that only the females take on this distinctive prehistoric appearance. They exhibit an unusual life strategy called neoteny, which involves retaining the juvenile form into adulthood. When they first came to the attention of the western world in 1831, the females were thought to be the juvenile stages of an unknown beetle. Puzzled entomologists were dumbfounded when none could be kept to adulthood before they died. It wasn’t for another 100 years that one was witnessed mating and the large, lumbering insects were finally correctly identified as adult females, with the males being tiny (8-9mm long) regular-looking beetles, complete with wings and antennae.
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