The diabolical ironclad beetle can withstand forces up to 39,000 times its body weight.
They can do that, researchers discovered, thanks to hardened casings on each wing that interlock and support the beetle’s exoskeleton.The 1-inch-long insect’s exoskeleton is capable of withstanding forces up to 39,000 times its body weight. Entomologists who try to mount these beetles for display usually wind up with their steel pins bent or snapped in half. or months, diabolical ironclad beetles typically live for two years, mostly in oak trees on the Pacific coast of North America. They can’t fly away from danger, which may explain why they developed an exoskeleton that protects them from birds’ stabbing beaks and crushing blows.

The researchers behind the study tested how much force the beetle, known as Phloeodes diabolicus, could take without getting squished. The answer: 149 newtons, which means the insect can get stomped on or run over by a car and survive.

An exoskeleton that locks together like a jigsaw puzzle. Kisalius’s group also investigated the beetle’s exoskeleton closely using electron microscopes and CT scans. The secret to the beetle’s resilience, they found, are a variety of joints that lock pieces of its exoskeleton together