<\/p>\n
The Namib desert of south-western Africa can be extremely hot – the surface temperature can be over 50\u00b0C<\/a>. But a surprising number of around 200 beetle species<\/a> live on its bare, inhospitable-looking sand dunes.<\/p>\n Scientists studying them were perplexed by the astonishing behaviour of one of the beetle species – a darkling beetle, Onymacris plana<\/a>.<\/p>\n Like most desert darkling beetles, it is black – a colour that absorbs heat. And it has a flattened body, a big surface area exposed to heat. Scientists…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a> The Namib desert of south-western Africa can be extremely hot – the surface temperature can be over 50\u00b0C. But a surprising number of around 200 beetle species live on its bare, inhospitable-looking sand dunes. Scientists studying them were perplexed by the astonishing behaviour of one of the beetle species – a darkling beetle, Onymacris plana. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":219616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[723],"tags":[258,256,22153,11691,10117,17422,4706,724,257,22920,11840,13510,17408,254,20866,12686,9311,7376],"class_list":["post-219615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-namibia","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-beetle","tag-cool","tag-desert","tag-namib","tag-namibia","tag-namibia-news","tag-news","tag-puzzle","tag-runs","tag-scientists","tag-solved","tag-south-africa-today","tag-species","tag-speedy","tag-stay","tag-unique"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa Namibia<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"