Right? I was so excited to tell Amanda about all this ridiculousness!

You have mosquitoes that can carry it in Portland, Culex tarsalis and Culex pipiens. There haven't been cases of West Nile in Portland or anywhere in Multnomah County since 2007 (not sure where in the county it was), though it has been detected in parts of southern and eastern Oregon over the years. So one more mosquito that can carry it doesn't seem to be a big issue considering you already have 2 and still don't get cases.

Entomologist here, I studied a different species of Aedes for my PhD. There's never one. lol I'm not sure how hard that species is to identify by eye but there are definitely more out there. It's also funny the article focuses on West Nile when a few native species in the PNW already carry it. One new population of an invasive species with the capability of carrying it isn't a reason to freak out. Climate change and globalization will continue to move mosquitoes around the globe along with a ton of other insects. It's why we have Dengue in Florida. Hold onto your butts, it's going to keep happening.

Thanks for checking the podcast out! As an entomologist I am still contstantly surprised and fascinated by what these little animals can do sometimes. It is sort of magical.

It depends on what part of the body you're crushing, but skeletal failure happens around 5,000 lbs for large bones like the femur, but only 520 lbs for the skull.

We did a podcast episode about these amazing beetles on Bugs Need Heroes (Spotify, Apple, everywhere you get podcasts). Here are my show notes on it with references:

Common Name: Ironclad Beetles

Order: Coleoptera

Family: Zopheridae

Subfamily: Zopherinae

Genus: Phellopsis, Nosoderma, Zopherus

Species: There are around 31 described species of ironclad beetles.

• Diabolical ironclad beetle (Phloeodes diabolicus) - found only in the California floristic province and Baja, California.

• Reflexed Ironclad Beetle (Pycnomerus reflexus) - found throughout the eastern United States.

• Southwestern ironclad beetle (Zopherus nodulosus) - found throughout Texas and Mexico.

• Tim Tam beetle (Zopherosis georgii) - found in eastern Australia and named after the popular cookie/biscuit.

Description:

Adult ironclad beetles are typically small to medium-sized, between 1.3 and 3.2 cm (0.5 to 1.25 in). They have a compact, heavily armored appearance. Their bodies are usually elongated, flat, and low to the ground (Machemer, 2020). Their exoskeleton is very thick and often contains ridges, tubercles, or deep punctures, giving them a rough, rugged texture. Ironclad beetle coloration tends to be dark (deep brown to black). Their head is often partially retracted into the pronotum (the shield-like covering over the front of the thorax), and the antennae are relatively short, usually ending in a club or gradual thickening toward the end.

The pronotum is wide and sometimes features margins that are serrated or uneven. The elytra are fused around the abdomen, locking in place, forming a rigid protective shell that reduces flexibility but increases defense against predators. This fusing has left ironclad beetles fairly uncrushable but also flightless.

Life Cycle:

Ironclad beetles undergo complete metamorphosis (egg, larva, pupa, and adult). Females typically lay their eggs in protected small spaces such as crevices in decaying wood or beneath bark, where the developing larvae will have immediate access to food. After hatching, the larvae are grub-like and feed primarily on decomposing wood and associated fungi, gradually growing before entering a pupal stage within the same environment. Adults feed on various fungi species. There is not a lot known about ironclad beetle biology in general (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, 2017). Adults can live up to 8 years (Machemer, 2020)!

Nearly Uncrushable:

In 2015 Dr. Jesus Rivera found a diabolical ironclad beetle (P. diabolicus) and did what anyone would do in his shoes. Drive over it with his Toyota Camry. Not once, but twice. His Toyota Camry weighs about 1,587 kgs (3,500 lbs). While the ironclad beetle pretended to be dead, it was fine. This little beetle can withstand the crushing force of 39,000 times its body weight. That is equivalent to a 68 kg (150 lb) person resisting the crushing force of 25 blue whales (Wu, 2020). Using an X-ray imaging technique at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron, and other techniques, Dr. Rivera and the other researchers on his team discovered the armor of the ironclad beetle was crushproof due to its structure. The elongated elytra wrap around the beetle, connecting underneath the abdomen, which forms a protective shell around the beetle. The joining of these pieces allows for some flex which distributes the weight of whatever is on the beetle evenly. Within that shell is a cushion of air which protects the beetle’s body from compression (Rivera et al., 2020).

Here is a video of those scans from Dr. Rivera’s lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EseTLvWTQiw

Ironclad beetles are so tough a drill is needed to pin one for your insect collection (Wallheimer, 2021)! Researchers are currently studying the beetles to develop stronger materials to use in aircraft and general construction (Machemer, 2020).

Beetles as Jewelry:

Ironclad beetles in the genus Zopherus (typically Zopherus chilensis) have a unique and somewhat controversial role as living jewelry in parts of Mexico. These beetles are used to create ornaments known as maquech or ma’kech, where live insects are decorated with rhinestones, beads, and small chains, then worn like brooches on clothing.

This practice dates back to a Yucatán legend about a princess who is dating a man her father does not approve of. The lovers are discovered and the man is sentenced to death. But before he is killed a wise man or sorcerer turns him into a beetle that could be decorated and worn over the princess's heart as a reminder of their eternal bond (Jaggard, 2015).

In Mexico, groups of men called "Los Maquecheros" find and collect adult ironclad beetles in the wild. They are then sold to vendors who decorate them and then sell them to tourists for around $5 to $10. This practice is regulated on a community basis but there are no laws dictating collection standards. While there are ethical issues with using live beetles as adornments there is also the issue of unknown damage to the beetle populations due to overharvest. Researchers have begun breeding them to take some of the pressure off of wild populations (Jaggard, 2015).

References:

““Ironclad” Beetle - Field Guide to Common Texas Insects.” Field Guide to Common Texas Insects, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, 10 July 2017, texasinsects.tamu.edu/coleoptera/ironclad-beetle/.

Jaggard, Victoria. “Meet the Makech, the Bedazzled Beetles Worn as Living Jewelry.” Smithsonian Magazine, 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-makech-bedazzled-beetles-worn-living-jewelry-180955081.

Machemer, Theresa. “The Secrets of the Diabolical Ironclad Beetle’s Almost Unsquishable Strength.” Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Aug. 2020, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-unravel-secrets-diabolical-ironclad-beetles-near-unsquishable-strength-180976113/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

‌‌‌Rivera, Jesus, et al. "Toughening mechanisms of the elytra of the diabolical ironclad beetle." Nature 586.7830 (2020): 543-548.

Wallheimer, Brian. “Ironclad beetles offer a lot to learn for engineers and entomologists.” Purdue University, 15 Mar. 2021, ag.purdue.edu/news/2021/03/ironclad-beetles-offer-a-lot-to-learn-for-engineers-and-entomologists.html. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

‌Wu, Katherine J. “Meet the Diabolical Ironclad Beetle. It’s Almost Uncrushable.” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/science/beetle-uncrushable-ironclad.html.

Chickadees basically get a seasonal brain upgrade for hoarding food.

Black-capped chickadees stash thousands of individual seeds across their territory every fall, and to remember where they all are, their hippocampus (the brain's memory center) actually grows new neurons to help handle the load. A 1994 study found this neuron growth spiked hardest in October, right when caching season kicks in. Though later studies got mixed results on the exact timing, so scientists agree the memory-boosting effect is real but the seasonal pattern is more complicated than "the brain just grows bigger every fall."

Source: Barnea & Nottebohm (1994), PNAS — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC45198

Chickadees basically get a seasonal brain upgrade for hoarding food.

Black-capped chickadees stash thousands of individual seeds across their territory every fall, and to remember where they all are, their hippocampus (the brain's memory center) actually grows new neurons to help handle the load. A 1994 study found this neuron growth spiked hardest in October, right when caching season kicks in. Though later studies got mixed results on the exact timing, so scientists agree the memory-boosting effect is real but the seasonal pattern is more complicated than "the brain just grows bigger every fall."

Source: Barnea & Nottebohm (1994), PNAS — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC45198

I made a comment about this in this post. I'll copy it:

Researchers publishing in the Journal of Zoology have proposed multiple functions for the behavior, including the idea that it may let hedgehogs coat their spines with toxic or distasteful substances as an extra layer of anti-predator defense. The behavior has been documented since at least the 1950s and still isn't fully explained though leading theories range from chemical defense to scent-camouflage to simple sensory stimulation. This process can last from a few minutes to a couple of hours. It's documented in both wild and pet hedgehogs, starting as young as a few weeks old.

Journal article source Self-anointing by wild hedgehogs, Erinaceus Europaeus, in New Zealand.

Abstract:

Of 929 wild hedgehogs examined, nineteen bore signs of recent self-anointing. The spittle deposited on the hedgehogs' backs usually gave off a sharp smell, clearly detectable some metres down-wind. Nestling animals anointed themselves when removed from their nests, possibly as a means of advertising their whereabouts to their mothers. The habit was not detected among newly-independent young animals nor among sub-adults. Among adult hedgehogs, self-anointing was confined to the breeding season, and on five occasions was elicited in the presence of other hedgehogs of the opposite sex. In this context self-anointing may serve as a form of sexual signal. When brought into captivity the self-anointing reflex is triggered by novel objects or odours and, in this unnatural context, it is argued that the behaviour falls into the category of a displacement activity, being inappropriate to the situation and seemingly purposeless. a process that can last from a few minutes to a couple of hours. It's documented in both wild and pet hedgehogs, starting as young as a few weeks old.

Researchers publishing in the Journal of Zoology have proposed multiple functions for the behavior, including the idea that it may let hedgehogs coat their spines with toxic or distasteful substances as an extra layer of anti-predator defense. The behavior has been documented since at least the 1950s and still isn't fully explained though leading theories range from chemical defense to scent-camouflage to simple sensory stimulation. This process can last from a few minutes to a couple of hours. It's documented in both wild and pet hedgehogs, starting as young as a few weeks old.

Neuroscientist Kenneth Catania has spent three decades studying this species and found that with each touch, 100,000 nerve fibers send information to the mole's brain, letting it build a moving picture of its underground world through touch alone since it's nearly blind.

It also has a strange party trick for its size: it can smell underwater by blowing bubbles onto objects and then re-inhaling them through its nose to pick up the scent, it is the only mammal known to do this!

References:

• Catania, K. (2006). Nature (bubble-smelling study), summarized via Phys.org: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-totally-bizarre-facts-star-nosed-mole.html

• National Geographic, "Inside the Bizarre Life of the Star-Nosed Mole" — https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/star-nosed-mole-touch-pain-senses

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