Carrion beetle
Carrion beetles are nature's clean-up crew. They find dead animals and eat them, which helps keep forests tidy. This kind lives in Australia, and its relatives live all over the world.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Scientists who help the police study carrion beetles found on a body to work out how long ago an animal or person died.
The oldest carrion beetle fossils are about 163 million years old and come from China.
Some relatives, the burying beetles, bury a small dead animal and both parents look after their babies.
Many carrion beetles still have wings but cannot fly.
Carrion beetles range from about 7 to 45 millimetres long.
Most asked questions about Carrion beetle
?What do carrion beetles eat?
Dead animals and other decaying things. That makes them helpful recyclers.
?Are carrion beetles harmful?
No. They do not bite or sting people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ptomaphila lacrymosa
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Staphylinidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Staphylinidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Silphinae (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by James K. Lindsey. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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