ISSUE #26: Beetles Have Turned Their Heads into Dueling Weapons

This is the closest I could get to Super Bowl related content.

There aren’t exactly sporting events in the insect world. No species of insects organize themselves into teams to stage elaborate tournaments held at certain times every year. The only thing about a football game that would potentially interest a bug is the wattage of the floodlights on the field. 

That’s not to say that insects don’t participate in a sort of sport of their own. Mating displays are common in many bug species, and some take the tradition to extremes, staging elaborate duels for territorial supremacy and mating rights—which one could argue is the same general origin of human sports in the first place.