This Mite-y Beetle Buries the Dead to Start a Family | Deep Look

Insects called burying beetles haul mouse carcasses down into the dirt and prep them to feed their future offspring. Also known as carrion beetles, they have some stiff competition … and some help from tiny traveling mites. 👉Sign up for our *Nature Unseen* Newsletter here: https://bit.ly/NatureUnseenSignUp SUBSCRIBE to Deep Look! https://www.youtube.com/user/kqeddeeplook?sub_confirmation=1 Please join our community on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/deeplook DEEP LOOK is an ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED in San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. --- Burying beetles are able to bury a small rodent or bird. They don’t kill these animals – they just benefit from them once their time has run out. Once the carcass is underground, the beetle – working alone or with its romantic partner – rolls it into a ball. This reduces the amount of flesh exposed to bacteria – and decay. To further preserve the flesh, the beetles drag their butts over the rolled carcass and cover it with microbes that slow the rotting. A few days later, the eggs that the female beetle laid next to the carcass hatch into larvae. At first, mom feeds them bits of prechewed mouse. Later, they climb into the carcass to feed on it themselves. Small hitchhiking mites, known as phoretic mites, piggyback on the beetles to the carcass. They feed on minuscule bits of the mouse and reproduce abundantly. But these mites actually help the beetles by doing away with the competition. The mites devour fly eggs that were deposited on the carcass when it was aboveground. Those eggs could have grown into maggots that would have competed with the beetle larvae for the carcass. --- Are burying beetles helpful? Some species can damage crops. But overall, burying beetles are useful. As nature’s undertakers, they break down dead animals, returning nutrients to the soil. --- Are burying beetles endangered? The yellow-bellied burying beetles (Nicrophorus guttula) we filmed at the Bodega Marine Reserve, on California’s Pacific coast, are abundant. So are most of the species of burying beetles around the world. One species, the American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) is threatened, however. This is possibly because it liked to bury passenger pigeon carcasses. Humans overhunted passenger pigeons, leading them to their extinction in 1914. ---+ Find a transcript on KQED Science: https://www.kqed.org/science/1994475/this-mite-y-beetle-buries-the-dead-to-start-a-family ---+ More great Deep Look episodes: Fire Ants Turn Into a Stinging Life Raft to Survive Floods https://youtu.be/cfKr6rnpakE?si=HqQlAD1hDBLseejU Varroa Mites Are a Honeybee’s 8-Legged Nightmare https://youtu.be/69Do8tw_xy0?si=eY9zKgzjxnGUu8wq Born Pregnant: Aphids Invade With an Onslaught of Clones https://youtu.be/vrzalLssomg?si=JZ53ZFbhwfztlouv ---+ Shoutout! 🏆Congratulations🏆 to the following fans on our Deep Look Community Tab for correctly answering our GIF challenge! The correct answer is phoresis. The piggybacking mites are referred to as phoretic mites. @governmentsteez7857 @hendricksonr6406 @TheWhiteScatterbug @Formula_Zero_EX @JavierCanteros ---+ Thank you to our top Patreon supporters ($10+ per month)! Darby Rachel Fenichel Wised1000 Susan Fuhs Hank Poppe Walter Tschinkel Marco Narajos H.M. Andrew Joan Klivans STEPHANIE DOLE Kevin Sholar J Schumacher Lily, Vinny, Izzy Altschuler Drspaceman0 Jamie Edwards BulletproofFrog The Mighty X LAUREL PRZYBYLSKI Kevin William Walker Oliver Wakeling Jessica Hiraoka Laurel Przybylski Jeremiah Sullivan Mehdi Mark Jobes Carrie Mukaida Cristen Rasmussen Wade Tregaskis Burt Humburg Noreen Herrington Roberta K Wright Brigitte Xia Louis O'Neill Jellyman Titania Juang El Samuels Laurel Przybylski Companion Cube Chris B Emrick Kristine Wee Karen Reynolds SueEllen McCann David Deshpande Daisuke Goto Elizabeth Ann Ditz Levi Cai ---+ Follow Deep Look and KQED Science on social: https://www.tiktok.com/@deeplookofficial https://www.patreon.com/deeplook Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kqedscience/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/kqedscience ---+ About KQED KQED, an NPR and PBS member station in San Francisco, serves Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial TV, radio and web media. Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios and the members of KQED. #deeplook #buryingbeetle #phoreticmites


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