By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent HAMILTON, Ohio — It’s a pleasant summer night … but out there in the deepest dark, a body is being buried. No crime has been committed, though – the federally endangered American burying beetle (ABB) is quietly burying an animal corpse. Once found in 35 states, the ABB now exists in only four. Perhaps few people care if this critter becomes extinct, but researchers at the Cincinnati Zoo care, as do others in Wayne National Forest and at the Wilds. “We care because biodiversity is important, but beyond that, these animals are decomposers,” said Mandy Pritchard, keeper at the Cincinnati Zoo’s Insectarium. “They are recycling things back into the environment very directly. “They bury animal carcasses in order to reproduce; those animal carcasses are food for their young. Then they are digested, and it comes out the other end essentially as fertilizer for the ground. It’s good for any soil where they’re found.” The orange-and-black critter’s lifecycle has a definite “yuck” factor. Adult beetles are attracted to a recently dead body, Pritchard explained. “They use olfactory organs in their antenna to find the carcass, which they can detect from over a mile away, and will fly to it.” These are small bodies, maybe a squirrel or a pigeon. Male and female beetles are both attracted to the carcass. They will fight off other males and females from their own and similar species until there is just one pair left. “They ‘win’ the carcass,” she said. “They will proceed to mate, and will bury the carcass underground. That’s where the rest of it all takes place. They’ll bury the carcass overnight, in a matter of a few hours. Then about a week to two weeks later, you’ll see larvae on the carcass, consuming it.” Unusual in the insect world, both parents feed and tend to their young, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. After about two more weeks, when the carcass is gone, the larvae wander off into the soil nearby where they pupate. Six weeks later they will emerge from the ground as adult beetles. Pritchard heads the Cincinnati Zoo’s ABB reintroduction program. They have a colony of beetles there and, in the spring, carefully place them underground with a previously frozen rat at Fernald Preserve. The release areas are covered with chicken wire to keep raccoons and other creatures out. In two weeks Pritchard and her crew revisit the site for a larval check. They remove the chicken wire and, wearing nitrile gloves, dig down to the rotting rat. If they find larvae on the carcass, they do a “happy larvae dance;” if not, they move on to the next site. At Fernald this spring, for the first time an adult beetle came to their lure. It had survived the winter on its own. Researchers at the Wilds were delighted to find three adult beetles that had overwintered. The researchers work together, trading beetles to promote genetic diversity. They collaborate in collecting beetles from Nebraska, one of only four states where the ABB still exists in the wild. And why is that? “With a lot of endangered species it is not just one answer,” Pritchard said. “There are issues like habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, increased pesticide use over the last hundred years. Light pollution is an issue for insects; when they’re going to a carcass, they get set off by lights. “There is also an increased predator population; raccoons and possums can seek the carcasses before the beetles have a chance.” |
