These are the creatures of the “extremes.” Nothing is too hot or too cold for them. Their very biology is tuned to survive in these intense conditions. And Yellowstone, a gigantic body punctuated with little worlds of extreme, unknowingly cradles zillions of these tiny extreme-loving creatures, mainly as bugs. In 2006, a team of bug scientists or entomologists, led by Leon Higley and Robert Peterson, visited Yellowstone to investigate the mystery of these extremophiles.
Wetsalts tiger beetles have existed since the Pinedale Glacial Icecap, around 14,000 years ago, when Yellowstone was enshrouded in a thick blanket of ice. Today, a mysterious “heat shield” protects their bodies from infrared radiation, offering them resistance to internal heating, in contrast to other beetles in Yellowstone. These notoriously lilliputian bugs bask around Yellowstone’s steaming hot pools, with their metallic colors glittering in daylight.
The adults, according to the Florida Museum, are so vigorous that when they move, they have to follow a run-stop-run pattern. They move so quickly that they almost turn blind and need to stop at intervals to reorient their vision. A toxic chemical they release makes them smell like bubblegum. Their immatures, or larvae, are sit-and-wait predators. These little guys hang around on the shores and wait for animals like shore bugs, small spiders, soldier flies, and brine flies to show up at the entrance of their burrow. Once the prey shows up, they pounce upon the prey and devour the meal.
As part of its water retention mechanism, the bug had a surreal “groove pattern” in its waxy coating with grooves measuring around 10 nanometers in depth. The unique design, together with the whole body mechanism of these tiger beetles, could prove to be a remarkable metaphor for understanding whether life could thrive on Earth’s sister planets, like Mars, Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter, as TED-Ed reflects. And if yes, then how?
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