An amazing new beetle was discovered in Costa Rica at the La Selva Biological Station in the lowland Atlantic rainforest of Northeastern Costa Rica. This beetle rides around on the backs of army ants as though it was horseback riding. To its predators or to the human eye, it looks like a second ant abdomen, given its hard, hairy shell. Scientists who discovered the beetle named it Nymphister Kronaueri. It was discovered during a biodiversity assessment study of army ants, and is believed to be the only beetle known to ride ants in this fashion.

N. Kronaueri was discovered in Costa Rica by Dr. Christopher von Beeren of Technical University Darmstadt, Germany, in 2014. Dr. von Beeren explained how they were discovered as follows, “While collecting ant guests during the nightly emigration of an army ant colony, we realized that the abdomen of some ants looked odd and reflected the light of our headlamps in a slightly different way. From above, it is difficult to detect the parasite, because the beetle closely resembles the ant’s abdomen … To our surprise, the odd looking ant abdomens turned out to be beetles.”
The tiny beetles use their powerful mandibles to hitch a ride on army ants while they move to new nesting sites. The army ants provide protection for the beetles, as well as a food buffet of leftover food morsels not eaten by the ants. N. Kronaueri are usually found near the end of the parade of army ants, an ideal position for gobbling leftovers.
The Costa Rican beetle was named one of the top ten newly discovered species of 2018, by the International Institute for Species Exploration, or IISE, a scientific institution that monitors and celebrates new discoveries of flora and fauna. Amazing Costa Rica continues to contribute newly discovered plants and animals each year, much of it found in the country’s network of national parks and animal sanctuaries.

A new international trend in superfoods this year — soon to be farmed in Costa Rica — is the Pacific Beetle Cockroach, the only species of cockroach able to bring forth live babies which developed in Mom’s body instead of laying eggs outside the body. But the amazing characteristic of this roach blessed event, is that the milk of this roach has four times more energy than cow’s milk, and contains all nutritional benefits needed to nurture baby roachlets, including protein, essential amino acids, lipids and sugars. Gwyneth Paltrow has already included this milk on her list of superfoods for her company — called Goop.
The scientific name for this cockroach is Diploptera punctata, and the milk of these roaches has an energy content so high, that their babies grow much bigger than the babies of other roach species. It looks like the insect that can survive a nuclear disaster may someday be able to help any other survivors by providing high calorie, nutrient rich milk. Scientists who discovered this amazing super food claim that the milk tastes just like cow’s milk, maybe slightly nuttier in flavor. So far, there is no concrete evidence that this milk is safe for humans.

The milk is harvested from the Pacific Beetle Cockroach, not by milking tiny roach teats, but by carving out the roaches’ guts to access the milk, which is in the form of milk crystals. To get 100 grams of milk, 1,000 roaches must be killed. The Chinese have already begun large roach farms, to perfect the process, and further develop harvesting techniques. At a facility in the Eastern Chinese province of Shandong, 3 billion roaches are eating 15 tons of kitchen waste each day to solve the age old environmental problem of what to do with mountains of discarded food, as well as how to cultivate this auspicious new superfood.
In case you think this superfood trend sounds too far- fetched, keep in mind that worm burgers are now selling in Germany, and cricket protein cookies are the rage in health food stores in the USA.
Could Costa Rica be at the vanguard of cultivating a new superfood which could cure world hunger, cockroach milk? CNN says “Cockroach milk is the protein drink you’ve been missing.”