Animal news: Another creature I didn’t want to know about

The iron-clad beetle.

Is there a point at which something like this beetle can no longer be categorized as an animal, instead of a SF invention from one of those post-apocalyptic films with menacing things that can’t be destroyed?

One of the strengths I derive from disliking and never watching or reading anything post-apocalyptic is, I can’t get paranoid about beetles that cannot — I repeat, cannot — be crushed unto death by a 3,500 pound Toyota Camry. Or, I’d guess, any other vehicle that weighed 3,500 pounds.

Instead of reading post-apocalyptic fiction, I read the New York Times.

Which puts it another way…

Evolution has given the insect an exterior that can hold its own against a force 39,000 times its body weight — the equivalent of a 150-pound person resisting the crush of about 25 blue whales.

 

 

 

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