Tables Turn as Beetles Kill Toads & Frogs

Livescience.com (Utah, USA) May 20th, 2011 12:15 PM: Tables Turn as Beetles Kill Toads & Frogs

A type of ground beetle has a strange snacking habit. New research finds the Epomis beetle opportunistically kills and eats amphibians many times its size — animals that usually prey upon the insect.

The beetle's normal diet consists of other invertebrates, such as insects, worms and dead vertebrates, but every time they were put in an enclosure with an amphibian, they attacked and consumed it, the researchers said.

"Amphibians are typical insect predators, and their diet may include adult beetles, ground beetles in particular," study researcher Gil Wizen, at Tel Aviv University in Israel, said in a statement. "The recently filmed successful attacks of the beetles on toads and frogs brought new insights on the amphibian-insect interactions, and documented the uncommon phenomenon of invertebrates preying on vertebrate animals."

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Definitely the reason why we don't use Epomis beetles for feeders. :D