Flathead toddler: incredibly strong, withstands enormous pressure (6 photos)

Toddlers are very tenacious creatures. They survive in a variety of locations, from a dung heap to the center of an anthill, and actively feed on meat, which they themselves obtain. Unfortunately, I'm not talking about human children. And not even about our today’s hero - the flat-footed toddler, with him everything is a little more complicated.





This armored personnel carrier deserves only one thing - respect.

Toddlers are a large family with more than 4 thousand species. And our hero is its proud representative. At first glance, this guy is cool. 9 millimeters of flesh clad in black lacquered armor, sharp mandibles, long wings hidden under strong elytra. The chitinous shell of the little one is so tough that, purely theoretically, the insect can survive under the tracks of a tractor!



It's polished better than 11th graders' prom shoes.

But why throw the poor animal under the equipment? There are so few of them! Flatfish are found from Spain to central Siberia, but the chances of meeting them are extremely low. The thing is that these insects are stenobionts; they can only live in specific environmental conditions.





Friend, I just received a letter. Can you help me read it?

In order for a place to appear where these insects will feel comfortable, a deciduous forest must remain untouched for about 100 years! Give the little ones old and diseased aspens, oaks and poplars; only under their bark do the animals feel comfortable. In the coniferous forest zone things are even more complicated. First, the forest must burn, deciduous trees will take its place, and at the moment when they begin to be replaced by coniferous trees, a window for reproduction will open for the little ones.



Even such handsome men cannot get rid of parasites(

Under the bark of old trees, an entire ecosystem is formed, the basis of which is fungi and rotting wood. Bark beetles and dozens of other animals feed on them, and at the very top of the food chain are little ones. Their flat bodies are perfectly adapted for living under the bark. And with their powerful bites, the little ones easily gnaw through passages and gnaw on the larvae.



Little toddler, side view.

Plants benefit from such cohabitants; they help delay the moment of death a little and grow several more generations of seeds. But people are not happy with this situation. Old forests burn well and are not particularly useful from a practical point of view. We regularly thin them out, further reducing the living space of flatheads. And if adult individuals can still survive on relatively young trees, then the larvae can eat and develop normally only in the phloem of large, but already rotting trees.



Youth on the hunt. Let's not disturb them.

My rating for the little ones: 7 bad choices out of 10. Their ancestors decided that the bodies of dying trees, rich in living creatures, were an excellent place to live. Overall, we didn't make a mistake. But who knew that people would come from Africa?