Oogpister | DeWetsWild

Anthia homoplata

The Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle is a large carnivorous insect about 5cm in length. They’re active by day and ferocious predators of other insects, using their strong mandibles to great effect. These beetles are found in a wide range of savanna and grassland habitats in all South Africa’s provinces and are also known locally as Oogpisters (“oog” being Afrikaans for eye, and the rest you can probably deduce from context) for their ability, shared with many other members of the genus, to spray a jet of formic acid with great accuracy up to 30cm far, this being potent enough to cause blindness in mammals and birds that attack the beetle.