Hey everyone! Long time no see again – been really busy at work and long hours have been preventing my blogging. However, wanted to share this video I took last weekend after my coworker brought in a scarab beetle larva she found outside. I set it on my desk, turned my back on it for a minute, and when I went back to take a closer look it was gone! We looked around for it and found it speeding across the floor like this:
It’s crawling UPSIDE DOWN!!! Super crazy cool. Our hypothesis: it’s so huge and fat that the little legs aren’t strong enough to drag that massive body along, so it uses this “backstroke” sort of approach instead.
Yep, nature is cool. And a little gross. But mostly cool.
Going to try to get a post up on Friday!! I have a huge backlog of stuff I want to post, so here’s hoping I’ll have a chance to get one of them online this week…
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Haha that is so funny! What an interesting strategy.
Follow-up question: did you try turning it right-side up?
Yep, and it rolled right back over onto its back and kept right on doing this. Pretty neat, really!
It looks just like a “normal caterpillar” walking, no holding him back!
Exactly! It really looks normal, until you realize it’s upside down.
“And a little gross.” Yes (slime!!). But it’s true–mostly nature is cool.