A black beetle, typically with broad orange bands on its wing cases, which buries small animal carcasses to provide a food store for its larvae.
Nicrophorus and other genera, family Silphidae
Also called sexton beetle
Example sentencesExamples
- Our work and Suzuki's also suggest that searching burying beetles can respond to the presence of congeners, irrespective of pheromone emission.
- There are isolated examples in nature: the American burying beetle watches its larvae, and male fish do the majority of egg guarding and cleaning.
- Dental floss was tied to a stake at one end and to the hind leg of the carcass at the other to facilitate locating the carcass after displacement by burying beetles.
- Even insect larvae try to get adult attention; immature burying beetles gesticulate at their parents to earn a helping of regurgitated, rotten meat.
- Each of the black pots contains a rotting quail carcass covered in soil and swarming with the larvae of American burying beetles.