Week Thirteen: Paederus Beetle

Common Name: Paederus Beetle, Nairobi Fly
Scientific Name: referring to all of genus Paederus

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order:  Coleoptera

Family: Staphylinidae   

Genus: Paederus

Not-So-Fun Fact: The Paederus beetle is highly attracted to light, which leads it into homes and other buildings. When these lights turn off, the beetle often drops onto the inhabitants of the buildings, causing them to crush the insect’s body in their haste to rid themselves of the pest. When crushed, however, it releases a potentially rash-causing and even blinding toxin called pederin.

Description: This insect warns potential predators about its toxicity by its bright coloring. Its body segments feature alternating colors of black and red or black and orange. Though it is a beetle, it has very short wings and only some species of the genus are capable of flight. The body of a Paederus beetle is long, narrow, and quite small.

Environment: The Paederus beetle inhabits very hot and damp climates across the globe, enjoying swampy woodland areas. Particular regions impacted by this pest include Nairobi and the Iraqi desert.

Reproduction & Development: Paederus beetle larvae are staphyliniform in shape and hatch from small white eggs. Over the course of a few days to a few weeks, they hatch, grow, and pupate into fully grown adults, which live for a relatively long time for a species of beetle. These beetles reproduce sexually.

Nutrition: Paederus beetles eat rotting vegetables, worms, decaying meat, and smaller insects. Their diet classifies them as omnivores. Other than their poisonous excretions when crushed, they are generally harmless in their feeding habits to larger organism, though they may sometimes damage food supplies by their feeding on vegetables and meat stored for consumption by humans.

 

 

Week Twelve: Corpse Flower

Common Name: Corpse Flower, Titan Arum

Scientific Name: Amorphophallus titanium

Note: Many species of the Rafflesia genus are also referred to as “corpse flower”. Here I am researching the titan arum, a specific species of the Amorphophallus genus.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Class: Monocotyledons

Order: Alismatales

Family: Araceae

Genus: Amorphophallus

Species: A. titanium

Fun(?) Fact: The corpse flower is so vividly named because of its terrible stench, which reminded its taxonomists of rotting flesh. This stench is used by the flower to attract its favored pollinators, which include carrion- and feces-eating beetles. 

Description: The corpse flower is an extremely large plant for a regular angiosperm. The flower itself may be five to ten feet tall and features a bulbous central structure known as the spathe, which stores the plant’s new seeds. The petals form a dull pinkish-red bell-shape and fan out elegantly around the pale spathe.

Environment: The exotic corpse flower is indigenous to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where its preferred habitat is rainforest.

Reproduction & Development: The corpse flower is differentiated as well by its unusual growth and sexual development. Anywhere from two years to ten years may elapse between a single plant’s blooms, as it requires specific environmental conditions to perform this activity. Between blooms the plant retreats to its underground body and root system, called the corm.  When blooming, its stench attracts its beetle pollinators, which become trapped inside the spathe and then are released coated with corpse-flower pollen, which will hopefully be carried inside another blooming plant that has managed to hoodwink the unfortunate beetles.

Nutrition: The corpse flower is a vascular plant, which means it pumps nutrients and water from the soil. Like most other plants, it also produces energy using photosynthesis. Unlike many of my other posts here, it is not deadly at all, merely unpleasantly scented.