Death watch beetle
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| Death watch beetle | ||||||||||||||||
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| Xestobium rufovillosum De Geer, 1774 |
The death watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum) is a woodboring beetle, namely a beetle whose larvae are xylophagous. The adult is approximately 7 mm long. The larva can be up to 11 mm long.
To attract mates, these woodborers create a tapping or ticking sound that can be heard in old building rafters during quiet summer nights. They are therefore associated with quiet, sleepless nights and are named for the vigil (watch) kept beside the dying or dead, and by extension the superstitious have seen the death watch as an omen of impending death.
The term "death watch" has been applied to a variety of other ticking insects including Anobium striatum, some of the so-called booklice of the family Psocidae, and the appropriately named Atropos divinatoria and Clothilla pulsatoria.
In 1787, antiquarian Francis Grose included the death watch beetle in his three-page inventory of contemporary omens of death [1].
The death watch beetle appears in a nativity song in which the innkeeper complains repeatedly that "there's death watch beetle in the roof."
In the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, the death watch beetle is mentioned simply as "deathwatches" The narrator hears it tapping in the walls while he watches his victim in his bedchamber.[2]
In addition, the death watch beetle has made a further literary appearance in Julian Barnes' A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. It features in the opening chapter, set aboard Noah's Ark, and is said that 'all [it] could think about was sex', the noise of which almost led to its extinction.
It also appeared in Ian Fleming's Thunderball and in Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. In addition, it is featured in Alice Hoffman's novel "Practical Magic" as well as in its film adaptation.
[edit] References
- ^ Walker (1995). Out of the Ordinary: Folklore & the Supernatural. Logan: Utah State University Press.
- ^ Reilly, John E. "The Lesser Death-Watch and "'The Tell-Tale Heart'," collected in The American Transcendental Quarterly. Second quarter, 1969. Available online
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