#Odontotaenius disjunctus

[platycryptus]

*ANGRY BEETLE NOISES*

context: I rolled a log over and found a group of passalids (Odontotaenius disjunctus) so i put them in my hand to take pics. Then I noticed another one on the other side of the log, but that one must’ve been from a different colony because they did not get along

(Virginia, 10/15/21)

[overdoso]

Odontotaenius disjunctus são besouros negros e reluzentes, variando entre 3 a 4 centímetros de comprimento; é um inseto norte-americano da ordem Coleoptera e da família Passalidae; um escaravelho cujo habitat se localiza da região central para o leste dos Estados Unidos.

[bytesizeambs]

Horned Passalus Beetle #shorts #beetle #hornedpassalusbeetle #bytesizeambs

This cutie is a Horned Passalus Beetle (also called Patent-Leather Beetle). They are some of my favorite beetles! More info on them can be found in the description of this YouTube short.

Also available on TikTok!

[ichneumoniid]

Wonderful stridulating puppies from a rotting log

(Odontotaenius disjunctus, 9/7/2024)

[rae-redacted]

Who wants to see a beetle!?

Pretty sure it's a patent leather beetle (Odontotaenius disjunctus)! This one was a little over an inch long and definitely one of the larger ones I've seen! I feel like it should have some jaunty music to go with the video.

[moonpulseworkshop]

A few of my most recent settings using all naturally deceased insects that I've found everywhere from my own yard to an Aldi automatic door entrance. The Polistes carolina wasp and Cylisticus sp. isopod have already made their way to new homes :D.

I create these with vintage thrifted finds, reused jars, pieces that I've collected and preserved from my own yard and garden, and pieces that I've found at my favorite craft re-use store.

Top L to R: Horned Passalus Beetle (Odontotaenius disjunctus, Clylisticidae isopod

Middle L to R: Green June Beetle (Cotinus Nitida), Giant Leaf-footed Bug (Acanthocephala declivis), Lycosidae Wolf Spiders

Bottom L to R: Brood XIX Periodical Magicicada wings, and Fine Backed Red Paper Wasp (Polistes carolina)

[barksenji]

My dad found a dead horned Passalus beetle, surrounded by ants, outside our apartment and brought it to me.

This beetle, Odontotaenius disjunctus, is a saproxylic beetle from the Passalidae family. It can grow over 1.5 inches long, weigh 1-2 grams, and pull 50 times its weight. These shiny black beetles have long grooves on their elytra, a small horn between their eyes, and stick antennae. Males and females look similar.

They communicate by rubbing their wings against their abdomen, creating sounds that intrigue both entomologists and music lovers.

[celestialmacros]

Ooh, shiny

Horned Passalus, aka Bess Bug (Odontotaenius disjunctus)

April 9, 2019

Southeastern Pennsylvania

[neature-walk]

odontotaenius disjunctus (patent leather beetle, or jerusalem beetle)

[new-beek-on-the-block]

Look at this big beetle!

a Horned Passalus (Odontotaenius disjunctus) that was in my driveway. check out the fuzzy red pair of middle legs. 

It was like an inch and a half long. 

[zoology-time]

Horned Passalus Beetle, Odontotaenius disjunctus

[onenicebugperday]

@visceratrash​ submited: think you could ID this beetle friend for me? My parents found them in the kitchen and im hesitate to put em outside in the snow 😬 North Texas

A beautiful beetle babe! It’s a horned passalus beetle, Odontotaenius disjunctus, which is also sometimes called the patent leather beetle for obvious reasons. It’s in Passalidae, which are collectively known as bess beetles. They live in and eat rotten wood and also care for their young which is very cute of them. If you could find a nice wood pile to deposit them on, it would be okay to put them back outside!

[versalles]

Bug diary

An odontotaenius disjunctus (horned passalus beetle) just came through my window. They make low hissing sounds when annoyed, but they don't bite (they are friendly bugs). It was released in nature after some pics :-)

[typhlonectes]

I was turning over rotten logs and found these awesome Bess beetles aka Horned passalus beetles, Odontotaenius disjunctus, in the WG Jones State Forest, Conroe, TX, USA.

These beetle live most of their lives in rotting wood, whcih they eat with the help of special gut bacteria.

photograph by Paxon Kale

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Having hundreds of roundworms living inside your abdomen may seem like a bad thing. But for horned passalus beetles, hosting wriggly nematode larvae may benefit them and the eastern U.S. forests they live in.

Beetles that harbor Chondronema passali larvae eat more rotting wood than beetles without the larvae, researchers report May 1 in Biology Letters. That increased decomposition could speed the cycling of forest nutrients, the authors suggest.

Earlier research found that about 70 to 90 percent of Odontotaenius disjunctus, commonly called bess beetles or patent leather beetles, are inhabited by hundreds if not thousands of nematodes, but appear to suffer few ill effects. The larvae feed off the beetles’ haemolymph, the insect version of blood, and in doing so suck up some of the beetles’ available energy, an effect that’s noticeable only when the beetles are under short-term stress.

That increased need for energy could be what drives infected beetles to chomp more wood, says Andy Davis, an ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. It’s also possible that beetles with larger appetites have more opportunities to become infected since they eat more wood, he says.

Davis and undergraduate student Cody Prouty captured 113 beetles from the woods near campus and isolated each one in a container with a chunk of wood. “On a quiet day, you could go in the lab and hear them chewing,” Prouty says.

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN A horned passalus beetle that is not infested by nematode larvae breaks down on average 60 grams of wood in three months (left) while a larvae-laden beetle breaks down 70 grams on average (right). CREDIT: A.K. DAVIS

After three months, the team weighed how much wood each insect had eaten, digested, excreted and eaten again after letting bacteria and fungi break the pulp down more. The researchers then dissected the beetles to identify which had nematodes. Beetles with nematodes had processed an average of 0.77 grams of wood per day. That was about 15 percent more than uninfected beetles, which averaged 0.67 grams per day. Beetles with nematodes were also were slightly larger, on average, something that could contribute to their larger appetites.

Davis says he’d like to measure the eating habits of the beetles before and after acquiring nematode larvae, and find out the impact of having different amounts of larvae in the gut. But first scientists need to figure out how and when the nematodes get into the beetles in the first place.

This study is part of “a new wave of research coming out now that promotes the idea that parasites are important in the ecosystem,” Davis says. “There are so many ways they’re interconnected, and we’re just getting around to studying them.”

Data showing the connections between the beetles and the nematodes are good, evolutionary ecologist Sheena Cotter says in an e-mail. “This is actually a really interesting system.” But she says the relationship appears more mutualistic, in which both get some kind of benefit, rather than a harmful parasitic one.

Adult nematodes living in rotting logs could be helping the beetles by pre-digesting the wood, says Cotter, of the University of Lincoln in England. And nematode larvae could be just hitching a ride to the next log. Although teeming with the larvae, “the beetles aren’t sick,” she says, “and in fact are probably harboring lots of nematodes for their own benefit.”