Brutal Insect Decapitators!!?
One dung beetles species, the Canthon virens, goes specifically after queen leafcutter ants. The female beetles will pounce on her victim, and after a short tussle, brutally rip her head off. What comes next is just plain gross. She will then take the head and a male beetle suitor and bury them all underground. She then uses the head as a sort of larder for the young beetles that will hatch from the eggs she lays.
Another dung beetle, the Deltochilum valgum, specializes in decapitating millipedes. And it’s method of removing the head is rather barbaric even for an insect, if you ask me. The dung beetle forces the head up and back, and then saws through the tissue connecting the head to the millipedes next body segment. This usually causes the head to pop off mid-saw. Gross.
Can you believe the inhumanity of these beetles? It makes me think of Henry VIII. Why do you think these guys are so obsessed with heads?
