UNL scientists say beetles’ move into state may be evidence of global warming

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BY MELISSA LEE / Lincoln Journal Star

Tuesday morning, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announced that a 1991 book by a pair of UNL entomologists had been revised to report the discoveries of dozens of new species of scarab beetles in Nebraska.

By Tuesday night, the book was in need of another revision.

Thank entomologist Matt Paulsen for that. Digging around in a prairie dog hole near Hastings Tuesday afternoon, he discovered speck-sized dung beetles whose existence previously had been documented only in Oklahoma and Texas.

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An image of a southern scarab beetle, Lucanis elaphus, that has recently moved into Nebraska. (Courtesy)

An image of a southern scarab beetle, Lucanis elaphus, that has recently moved into Nebraska. (Courtesy)

Seems Paulsen and Brett Ratcliffe, curator of insects at the University of Nebraska State Museum, had better get working on the next edition of their book.

Of course, that could quickly become outdated, too. One of every four living things on Earth is a beetle, Ratcliffe says, and many of the critters remain unclassified.

Perhaps that fact makes you shudder a little. It makes Ratcliffe downright gleeful.

“It means more beetles for us!” he says, leaning across his desk excitedly.

Just as critical to Ratcliffe as identifying new species is spotting species new to Nebraska — beetles like the ones Paulsen found Tuesday that previously could survive only in warm Southern states and continents but now appear to be emerging in climates further north.

Ratcliffe and his team have discovered about a dozen such species. The shift, they believe, is among a growing number of changes in nature that reflect a warming climate.

And it shouldn’t be ignored — or else, Ratcliffe jokes, the huge, horned “rhinoceros” beetles that look scary even when they’re lifeless and beneath glass could start moving from their Central and South American habitats into Nebraskans’ backyards. (Although it must be noted the rhino beetles, like all scarabs, are harmless.)

“Nature is sending us signals, if we would just listen,” Ratcliffe says.

He and his team are no strangers to classifying new scarab species. Paulsen discovered one species that a colleague named Aphodius paulseni in his honor. He discovered another he named Aphodius matiganae after his 10-year-old niece, Matigan, a fellow bug lover. Ratcliffe, too, has named species after family members.

Still, they say the experience never gets old.

“That rush of discovery is exciting,” Paulsen says.

And they’re getting national and international attention for their work. Ratcliffe spent Wednesday, for example, in the field with a scholar visiting from Japan, and the Smithsonian Institution has lent its large scarab collection to UNL for research and organization.

They’re doing it, Ratcliffe says, even as the State Museum continues to reel from the hit it took when UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman cut its budget five years ago as part of tens of millions of dollars in reductions across the university system.

Ratcliffe’s position was in jeopardy then, but the university managed to keep the award-winning researcher in a revised role, giving him more classroom duties that he says take away from his time in the lab and field.

He knows he’s luckier than former colleagues who were let go altogether. But morale has not recovered, he says.

“We are not what we used to be.”

Still, the man whose career grew from a childhood hobby of collecting insects can’t be kept from the lab.

Insects shape everything from nature’s balance to human popular culture, he says. And that fascinates him.

“We’re living in their world.”

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.