rhamphotheca:

Male Rhino Beetle’s Horn Doesn’t Seem To Cost Much

by Susan Milius

While the spiked horns on rhinoceros beetles may look like masculine sacrifice for the sake of huge weapons, the protrusions may not be such a drag after all.

Male Trypoxylus dichotomus beetles grow upswept rhino-style horns with forked tips that they use in struggles to flip rivals off trees where females feed. “Imagine a beetle flying around with a pitchfork on the front of its head,” said Erin McCullough of the University of Montana.

Cumbersome as the horn looks, though, McCullough and her colleagues are having trouble documenting much inconvenience to the beetle, she reported January 5 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

“It’s surprising,” said evolutionary biologist Christopher J. Clark of Yale University’s Peabody Museum, who heard the presentation. “It just feels like there should be a large cost.”

(read more: Science News)   (photo: Wikimedia/Joi Ito)