Forked fungus beetle
The forked fungus beetle is a bumpy brown beetle that lives on shelf fungi growing on trees. The boys have horns on their heads, a bit like a tiny rhino. It looks so much like bark or fungus that it is very hard to spot.
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Fun facts
The boys use their horns to fight over the best pieces of fungus, because girls choose boys with big fungus homes.
The girls have no horns at all.
It can fly, but it hardly ever does, because hiding on bark works better.
A mum lays only about 8 to 12 eggs in a whole summer, usually one at a time.
It is busy at night, and in the daytime it hides on the underside of the fungus.
Most asked questions about Forked fungus beetle
?What does the forked fungus beetle eat?
Shelf fungus that grows on trees.
?Why do forked fungus beetles have horns?
Only the boys have them. They use them to push other boys away from their fungus.
?How big is the forked fungus beetle?
About 10 to 12 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bolitotherus cornutus
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Tenebrionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Tenebrionidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Horned fungus beetle
Where the facts come from
- Bolitotherus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Ken-ichi Ueda. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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