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Darkling Beetle

Insects

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Darkling beetles are a large, diverse family of beetles, Tenebrionidae, mostly nocturnal scavengers and detritivores found worldwide, including many species adapted to arid and desert environments. The family includes Tenebrio molitor, whose larvae, known as mealworms, are widely reared commercially as animal feed and increasingly as human food, and several Namib Desert species famous for a fog-basking behavior in which they tilt their body to collect windborne fog droplets on their wing covers and channel the water to their mouth.

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