a beetle of the genus Necrophorous, which buries the dead bodies of small animals by excavating beneath them, using the corpses as food for themselves and their larvae: family Silphidae
Also called: sexton
burying beetle in American English
noun
any of various carrion beetles that bury the carcasses of small animals, esp. rodents, in which their eggs have been deposited
Word origin
[1795–1805]This word is first recorded in the period 1795–1805. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: kingpin, mannerism, mirage, steeplechase, wrecker
Examples of 'burying beetle' in a sentence
burying beetle
Evidence suggests that burying beetle species reduce competition by partitioning carrion for breeding across different habitats, temperatures, and seasons.
Jillian D. Wettlaufer, Kevin W. Burke, Adam Schizkoske, David V. Beresford, Paul R.Martin 2018, 'Ecological divergence of burying beetles into the forest canopy', PeerJhttps://peerj.com/articles/5829.pdf. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)