In the hot dunes of Southern Africa’s Namib Desert, the black beetle Onymacris plana runs fast for its tiny size. Turns out, the speed not only helps the beetles find food but also, perhaps, cool down. The beetles’ temperature drops after a sprint, even in intense sunlight, researchers report July 9 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The cooling is “not just marginal,” says ecologist Carole Roberts, formerly of the Gobabeb Namib Research Institute in Walvis Bay, Namibia. “It takes them into a safety zone that guarantees their survival.” She and her colleagues conducted their experiments on the beetles nearly 40 years ago, but because no one had worked