darkling beetle

1 9.1

A dark, hard-bodied beetle whose young often eat dead plants or stored grain

noun
/ˈdɑrk.lɪŋ ˈbiː.təl/

: escarabajo oscuro

Examples

Darkling beetle

Academic text (2009)
The darkling beetle is often found in gardens, where it feeds on decaying leaves.
Farmers sometimes struggle with darkling beetles in their stored grain.
When the darkling beetle senses danger, it may release a foul-smelling chemical to deter predators.

Synonyms

flour beetle

vsdarkling beetle

1 6.2

A small insect that lives in flour and stored grains and spoils food

is broader and not limited to infesting stored food or being a storage pest

darkling ground beetle

vsdarkling beetle

9.5

A slow hard-bodied black beetle that lives on the ground whose young eat rotting plants or stored grain

is the general name for such dark hard-bodied insects without habitat emphasis

tenebrionid

vsdarkling beetle

Specialized

9.9

A hard, dark beetle whose young eat dead plants or stored grain

is the single type within that family rather than the whole family

Surface Forms

darkling beetle singular

darkling beetles plural

Morphology

darkling + beetle

The phrase is compositionally built from 'darkling' (dark, shadowy) + 'beetle' (an insect), so its meaning as a dark-colored beetle is directly inferable from the constituents. Although 'darkling' is somewhat literary, the descriptive noun + modifier pattern is common and predictable, making it transparent to learners who know both words.

Etymology

Darkling beetle likely comes from the old word darkling, which means 'in the dark'. These beetles are dark and often active at night, so the name came to mean a dark, hard-bodied beetle.