Dune IRL: Meet the Desert Darkling Beetle

Did you know there is a bug that has a built-in stillsuit, just like in Dune? In this video, Museum Educator Jason introduces us to the Desert Darkling Beetle, one of more than 20,000 species of darkling beetles worldwide. The Desert Darkling Beetle lives in extreme desert habitats, like Dune’s Arrakis. These beetles conserve water via a process called fog-basking, in which they climb to the top of a sand dune, stick their rear end in the air, and allow droplets of mist that land on their exoskeleton to flow down ridges on their backs into their mouths. They even have a waxy coating on their exoskeleton to help them retain water! What do you think we can learn from these beetles’ treatment of water as a precious resource in our changing climate?