A wonder inspired by Lucy Lapwing

Author Lucy Lapwing was talking about oil beetles on the Plodcast recently, which was a left-field moment of wonder for me, so hear me out! This mind-blowing journey starts with a female beetle laying her eggs, which then hatch into tiny larvae, known as triangulans, bright orange, barely visible, who are then in a race to find a flower. They cannot fly, they can only climb. And then they wait, they need a bee, not just any bee, a solitary female bee. If a female solitary bee lands, this triangulan will use their tiny claws to hitch a ride back to the burrow. On arrival, it eats the pollen the bee has gathered and eats her egg. And then miraculously, over time, the tiny larvae evolves and turns into an adult beetle, almost unrecognisable from what it was. Another moment of wonder that comes from hanging on.