Have you ever caught your own reflection in a bug? You might if you’re looking at a jewel scarab.
This species of scarab beetle is also known as Chrysina limbata.
Michael Farmer mistook one of them for a small piece of metal he thought was lodged into a leaf on a guava tree on his property in Costa Rica.
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“I was amazed by how beautiful it was,” Farmer said. “[I’ve] never seen anything like it.”
Farmer said he was amazed by the “utterly flawless reflection in the beetle.”
In fact, he said it was “truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”
He then placed the beetle on a leaf and watched it fly off. Jewel scarabs are native to Central America.
These incredible creatures look like they are made out of solid gold.
Their metallic color is what gives them a reflective look. The beetles’ exoskeleton manipulates reflected light wave oscillation to give them the appearance of being a reflective metallic gold color.
The jewel scarab’s optical signature was discovered to be “optically ambidextrous” which means it can reflect left-handed and right-handed circularly polarised light.
“The brilliant golden color and distinctive polarised reflection from the scarab beetle Chrysina resplendens sets it completely apart from the hundreds of thousands of other beautiful and brightly colored animals and plants across the natural world,” Professor Pete Vukusic said.
This incredible characteristic is something that scientists are studying in order to adapt optical technologies.
The jewel scarab’s exoskeleton is comprised of nano-structures with repeating layers that simultaneously reflect a range of visible colors.
These structures produce polarized light that oscillates in left and right directions.
Jewel scarabs are most prominently found in Costa Rica and live in mountain forests.
When in the larvae stage, they eat rotting logs.
Adult jewel scrabs will eat the foliage. They spend several months to a year as larvae, pupate for a month or two, then they’ll spend about three months as an adult.
While scientists are certain how the jewel scarab gets its color, they aren’t 100 percent sure why.
“It is not absolutely clear why these beetles are a bright golden color, but one option is that it somehow works in camouflage under some light conditions,” Dr. Martin Stevens, Associate Professor of Sensory and Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Exeter said.
Stevens said that the golden color of a jewel scarab can also change as it moves, which might serve to temporarily blind or confuse a predator with its brightness.
Jewel scarabs are very rare since they’ve suffered a population decrease due to habitat loss.
They are also captured be sold to collectors. But taking this creature didn’t cross Farmer’s mind at all.
He put the beetle he found back on the tree and let it fly away. He does hope that he gets to see another one someday.
Learn more about this incredible bug insect in the video below.
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