Have you ever thought that a beetle lives to a ripe old age? No? Neither have we – but it turns out that surprisingly long lifespans do exist among invertebrates. As we were browsing the insect collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, one specimen in particular caught our eye: a beetle that can live up to 50 years.

A beetle in the fifties? What a concept. The Gold Jewel Beetle (Buprestis aurulenta), and it’s a beauty. As adults, they have a glittery green exoskeleton lined with a gorgeous red hue, but despite their beauty, they have historically been considered pests.

That’s because golden jewel beetles are wood-boring animals, meaning they view any wood on a property as a hearty meal. In their native range of western North America, they have become a difficult pest to control, not least because they are so good at hiding in wood without any visible signs from the outside. Sometimes the best way to find them is to listen for their chewing sounds.

For this reason, when golden orbicularis beetles appear, they are usually assumed to be at least as old as the building, unless potentially contaminated wood has obviously been introduced since construction – for example, through an extension or repairs using wood that unknowingly contains invaders.

Another interesting thing about these animals is that the amount of time they spend hiding in the wood before coming out does not seem to be uniform across species. In fact, the time spans can vary considerably even within the same brood of beetles.

“Some cases of prolonged development time are caused extrinsically by direct environmental influences, such as Buprestis aurulenta,” wrote Yong Zeng in the University of Florida Book of Insect Records. “Smith (1962) suggested that there are innate differences in the rate of development between individuals of the same species. B. aurulenta brood; some have a short development rate and others a prolonged development under the same environmental conditions.”

“Obviously, the poor nutritional quality of dead wood leads to a significantly prolonged development (Haack & Slansky 1987). As Howard (1942) pointed out, the larvae of certain wood-boring beetles (Cerambycidae and Buprestidae) in furniture and wood products may have the longest lifespan of any insect under these exceptional conditions.”

An impressive title for the golden beetle, but we still have a lot to learn about it. Another long-lived group of invertebrates are the periodical cicadas, which are known for staying underground for long periods of time with such regularity that we can predict when a cicada apocalypse is coming – even if it takes 221 years.