A Look At A Few Weird Insects
When it comes to weird insects, like beauty, weirdness is often in the eye of the beholder. One hundred people, randomly selected from around the planet, could each come up with a list of 100 weird insects, and no two lists would have anything in common. There are many different insects, in fact there are more insects and more species and types of insects than there are of any other creature in the animal kingdom, and most of them are just a little bit weird.
One could simply look at the beetle family to put together a long list of weird insects. One reason is that beetles account for the largest number of species in the insect world, and another reason is that many beetles are extremely weird, at least in appearance.
One of the truly weird insects, and truly weird beetles for that matter, has to be the Bombardier beetle. If the bombardier beetle were the size of a human, we would risk being scaled to death if we encountered one. The Bombardier beetle isn't very big, and to defend itself against predators it sprays a chemical which is heated to the boiling point of water, 212 degrees F. Besides being hot, this cloud of liquid is very toxic. It's not necessarily lethal, except perhaps to other small insects, but will usually deter larger predators from coming any closer. There are about 500 species of these beetles, and most of them appear to not only release a jet of spray, but to control the direction of the jet stream as well.
Two other beetles should be included in a list of weird insects. One of the world's largest is the Goliath beetle. It's 4 inch length isn't the longest any insect attains, but the combination of its length and weight make it one big fellow. The biggest of all however may be the South American Titanus gigantus. The name alone sounds pretty big. This beetle can reach 7 inches in length, and while not particularly aggressive can deliver a very painful bite if it feels threatened. The Goliath beetle on the other hand is a bit more docile and can even be kept as a pet.
One more beetle which is pretty weird looking, but is better known for its strength, is the Hercules beetle. This is a type of rhinoceros beetle, whose extended proboscis bears a resemblance to one of the Muppets. Gonzo? The Hercules beetle has the reputation of being the strongest creature on earth, pound for pound, or perhaps gram for gram. We usually think of ants as being very strong for their size, and they are, but the Hercules beetle can lift and carry over 800 times its own weight. Weighing a couple of ounces, the Hercules beetle, which is nearly as large as the Goliath beetle, has been known to drag a piece of wood weighing in the vicinity of 100 pounds. That's weird!
If by weird we mean something that really doesn't look at all like an insect, take a look at a Borneo walking stick. This is a fair sized insect in terms of length, but looks like a collection of very thin twigs, and when motionless on the branch of a tree you would probably never even notice it.
Kinky Sex - If we're going to discuss weird things, we might as well bring up kinky sex, the domain of the African bat bug. The male African bat bug apparently never attended sex education classes since, it doesn't always seem to know, or care, where the female's sex organs are located. Most of the time it simply injects sperm by stabbing the female anywhere in the abdomen. This is a bit gruesome but seems to do the job. The male African bat bug will sometime treat other male African bat bugs in the same manner, which of course is really weird, but little bat bugs do not result from such encounters.
There are literally thousands more species of weird insects than those mentioned here. All of us occasionally see one flying by, or crawling nearby, that we often can't identify. The beetles seem weird enough. The bat bug is downright crazed.