I will never not reblog dainty deer-stepping beetle
wanna know the best thing about these trilobite beetles?
these are all ladies.
males look like every other beetle out there, but are the same species. it was a huge mystery for the longest time what the hell a male even looked like, or if there even were males, until they issued a money reward and someone brought in a mating pair. and they couldn’t believe that they were even of the same species because of how different they look.
we have an irl species of giant monstrous ladies and tiny dainty plain males
What’s also neat is that these have the same anatomy as firefly larva, but they’re a different family sharing a common ancestor.
And in some fireflies, the same thing has happened convergently where females remain “larviform” and only the males develop wings!