Nicrophorus nepalensis

The body of N. nepalensis is shiny black and has unique elytral patterns with four separated scalloped, orange markings and black dots in both anterior and posterior fascia. The basal segment of the antennae is black and the tips are club shaped with three orange segments. Frons of the female have an elliptical shape, whereas those of the male are more rectangular. A distinct feature that separates males from females is the conspicuous orange spot on the clypeus near the mandible. Another feature is the post-ocular bulge found in males. Pronotal width is a common measurement of beetle size, and adult N. nepalensis can range from 3.6 to 7.0 mm, with no significant variations between male and female.

N. nepalensis can be found primarily in the mountainous regions in eastern Asia and the Malay Archipelago, with a distribution ranging from 73°E (Pakistan) to 149°E (Papua New Guinea) longitudinally and from 51°N (Ussuri, Russia) to 9°48′S (Papua New Guinea) latitudinally. Countries within this range includes Pakistan, India, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, and Malaysia.

Intraspecies dynamics within populations of N. nepalensis has been forgone in most research settings and instead interspecific competition such as the competitive exclusion by small Indian mongoose populations has been more heavily investigated. Interspecies competition can be used as an influencing force on the transformation of intraspecies conflict to intraspecies competition in N. nepalensis. Only one chemical cue, the emittance of dimethyl disulfide or more commonly known as DMDS, can cause N. nepalensis to take on a more cooperative stance in terms of burying carcasses. This form of social cooperation becomes seemingly activated when populations of blowfly maggots start to digest the tissue of these carcasses claimed by N. nepalensis. This is because dimethyl disulfide is emitted from carcasses consumed by the blowfly maggots but is not emitted from control carcasses which had no interactions with blowflies. This social behavior has been quite difficult to empirically quantify since social animals like N. nepalensis engage commonly in shared investment over resources that benefit the entire group. In the experiment, researchers collected N. nepalensis from Nantou County, Taiwan, and utilized chromatography-mass spectrometry to quantify the dimethyl sulfide emitted from the blowflies. …