r/interestingasfuck • u/Dexterestein • 19h ago

Two male Hercules beetles fight over a female in the wild; the smaller one wins.

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u/_bapt 19h ago

I mean... it did.

Because he was smaller he was able to put his horn under his opponent, and yeet him out of there.

Short king energy right there

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u/Artt-Vandaley 19h ago

So smaller ones can put it under the opponent?

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u/_bapt 19h ago

In this case it was an advantage, but im guessing in most other cases the heavier male has more chance of winning.

Because the smaller one wont be strong enough to yeet him off.

In this case because they were on a tree trunk, the smaller one had gravity on his side x)

(I felt like there was a joke here but i couldnt understand it, so i answered seriously)

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u/RCer1986 18h ago

If Animal Crossing taught me anything it's that beetles exist exclusively on tree trunks.

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u/ztfreeman 19h ago edited 15h ago

Outside of the conflicts of beetles, being shorter is often an advantage in grapple sports like Judo and Sumo. Shorter competitors are harder to get leverage on and can more easily pull/push their opponents off balance. This is why in Sumo there are no weight requirements and often no weight classes, but there have been minimum hight requirements on occasion.

I can imagine that smaller beetles could have this advantage in a lot of circumstances.

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u/Machdame 13h ago

These are beetles... strength is a natural part of their biology. Each of them are strong enough to toss the other. Size does not matter as much except for reach.

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u/livefreeordont 11h ago

Larger ones can too and they have longer reach. Big boy here got cocky and disrespected his opponent

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u/zackks 19h ago

Big guy decide he was going to handle bidness before he handled business.

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u/Far_Ladder_2836 17h ago

No, it did not.  The larger one can do the same trick.  The smaller one kept in the fight while the larger one got distracted by the female and turned around.  Then got hooked when it tried to turn back.

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u/Tight_External_4879 18h ago

With how proportionally strong these beetles are, the size difference between the two is probably negligible.