This beetle has no wings — and researchers say it’s a first of its kind

When Vinicius Ferreira came across an unusual beetle in the small collection of Lund University in Sweden, he thought it was a joke.

“I thought it was a joke because I’ve never seen anything like it. So I said, ‘Okay, I have to put this under the microscope to make sure no one is kidding me,'” Ferreira said. As it happens host Nil Koksal.

It had no wings, which is almost unheard of in beetles. And when Ferreira looked into it further, he discovered that it wasn’t a joke after all.

It was an undiscovered species of beetle and Ferreira started to learn more. Are findings were published last week in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

The beetle has been given a name Xenomorphon baranowskiito the Xenomorphs from the movie Alienand the man who first found the beetle, naturalist Richard Baranowski.

Baranowski first documented the beetle in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1991. It was found at an elevation of about 9,000 feet. But it has not been investigated until now.

“Xenomorph means a strange shape or a weird shape. And this beetle here has a really weird shape and remarkably reminds me of an alien because of the ribbed back and the jagged antennae,” Ferreira said.

The insect’s lack of wings wasn’t the only surprising discovery. The beetle also lacked elytra, which are the tough, hardened front wings of a beetle that form a kind of shield on its back.

Through research, Ferreira and other members of his team determined that the beetle had never been seen before.

Stay grounded

Ferreira says it’s not entirely unheard of for a beetle to have no wings. A condition called paedomorphosis — a phenomenon in which female beetles retain some features of their younger larval form — can leave some female beetles without their wings.

But he says this is the first recorded example of wingless male beetles. That’s a big deal for beetles looking for a mate.

“If you don’t have wings and elytra, you diminish your ability to go out and find a mate. So how are you going to have a date and make more baby beetles without wings, right?” said Ferreira.

Ferriera can’t say for sure why these beetles became wingless, but he has some theories. He says the beetles in Oaxaca may have evolved to be wingless to handle the high winds at the altitude that Baranowski discovered them.

“If you’re a beetle just three millimeters long and you try to fly, you could just be wiped out,” Ferriera said.

He also says it’s possible that these beetles are an example of paedomorphosis in males.

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Professor Darryl Gwynne, who was not involved in the study, says this is a new discovery in the beetle world.

“All adult beetles ever found, up to this study, possess elytra. It is the essence of beetle,” the University of Toronto biology professor emeritus said in an email.

Gwynne says more information is needed about what evolutionary pressure led to the loss of the beetles’ elytra in Oaxaca.

That’s something Ferriera hopes to discover. In fact, he says the discovery and subsequent investigation left him with more questions than answers.

While he has not received funding to conduct additional research on the beetle, he is eager to visit the site where the beetle was found.

“The follow-up to this would be [to] hike back to the mountain where it was collected and find more to answer all those questions,” Ferriera said.

“Anything is possible with beetles. And the discovery of this animal here is yet another proof that indeed anything is possible with beetles.”