Insect antenna as a smoke detector

Abstract

The larvae of jewel beetles of the genus Melanophila (Buprestidae) can develop only in the wood of trees freshly killed by fire¹. To arrange this, the beetles need to approach forest fires from as far as 50 kilometres away¹, ². They are the only buprestid beetles known to have paired thoracic pit organs³, which behavioural², ultrastructural⁴ and physiological experiments⁵ have shown to be highly sensitive infrared receptors, useful for detecting forest fires. It has been suggested that Melanophila can sense the smoke from fires⁶, but behavioural experiments failed to show that crawling beetles approach smoke sources². We find that the antennae of jewel beetles can detect substances emitted in smoke from burning wood.