World's Tiniest, Free-Living Insect Discovered Feasting on Fungi

Scientists may have discovered the world's tiniest, free-living insect. They've made a precise measurement of the featherwing beetle species, which measures a tiny .325 mm.

As many as 85 individuals from the tiny beetle species have been retrieved from Columbia. While the species itself was first described in 1999, it's only now that researchers have thoroughly examined and measured the species.

The species is called Scydosella musawasensis, and is morphologically characterized by its elongated oval body, yellowish-brown coloration and antennae split into 10 segments. It's also the only representative of this featherwing beetle genus.

In the past, researchers were not able to precisely measure the size of the beetle because the preserved specimens were embedded in preparations for microscopy studies. Now, researchers have used new individuals to find out that the length of the smallest was .325 mm with the help of specialized software and digital micrographs.

What makes this tiny beetle species so interesting is that it lives independently rather than parasitically off of another organism.

This latest survey is actually only the second record of the beetle species. It shows that the range of distribution is much wider than first expected. This, in turn, means that the localities of the fungi that the insect feeds on are also more widely distributed than once thought.

The findings are published in the journal ZooKeys.

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