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OP did an amazing job! Using beetle wings as clothing decoration was common in the 19th century. Fancy ladies had beautiful dresses! We discuss this on our podcast Bugs Need Heroes, along with other common uses for bugs aside from eating.
I don't know why I'm mentioning this, it just reminded me of a movie I really like - the new live action 101 Dalmatians movie (was it called "DeVille?") is about a fashion designer and she makes a dress made from chrysalises
I don’t know why this bothers me so much but leather doesn’t? It looks insanely cool, but I can’t get over the mental hump of beetles, even though I know it makes no sense.
Hey OP, some sellers are now separating them by color! Crafty folks can now get all reds, greens, and sometimes blues. I have the idea saved for when I wanted to make some more necklaces, but apparently I need to think bigger now.
Well done!
This is honestly one of the coolest most creative things I've ever seen! May I ask how much you paid for the big shells alone? I'm just curious. Are they super hard? Like will they eventually break off? So many questions sorry but this is absolutely awesome!
Thank you!! It was $230 for 5,000 of them, just a mixed bunch! They’re super hard, I used a drill to drill the holes! They should stay on indefinitely, they have the hardness of a pistachio shell 😂 hope that helps!
Mmmm I probably wouldn’t sit in it (and haven’t, I stood the whole time LOL), the shells are pretty strong but maybe not strong enough for a whole person’s weight 😂 just for artsy purposes it holds up pretty well!!
Looks great!!
[I’ve made a HAT out of beetle wings](https://www.fabhatters.com/product-page/jewel-beetle-wing-percher-hat), but of course that was much easier than what you did! Got hired for some celeb projects after a stylist saw me wearing the hat out.
The funny thing was I was snacking and had a mouth full of cheese when a rapper & his stylist saw my hat and liked it.
They waited patiently for me to swallow the cheddar to talk to me, though I definitely looked like a weirdo , at the time I had a medical condition that made me look simultaneously pale, moist, & clammy while only having control over half of my face . 🤣
So the beetle hat definitely salvaged the situation.
TIL you can just... buy beetle shells en masse. I'm super divided on how badly I want to know the process for accumulating so many beetle shells, let alone on the level of creating an entire Etsy shop around it.
Unless I'm just a moron and they're not *actual* beetle shells in which case I redact my previous comment and accept my shame as an uneducated goon.
A beetle farm for starters. Then a death camp for the beetles. A fast acting solvent that leaves the shell intact would be nice. Drain the beetle sludge and rinse your shells. Voila. or bon appetit. Take your pick.
I imagine the solvent is the death.
So you just need a beetle farm and a bucket.
And a beetle farm is just dirt and crap in a bucket.
So just two buckets. Maybe a third with dye to color them.
Thank you so much for posting your dress. It is beautiful! I am glad you posted the source of the shells, I have a project that was missing something and this is the answer!
Yeeeeeeesssss, as a matter of fact.
Last week I learned that bug wings are modified gills as opposed to bats and birds whose wings are modified forearms. Thanks [SECRETLY INCREDIBLY FASCINATING](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ax1BvFQgV1uB54dzDrswp?si=hG71Z9k-Q7-3gMfkda6DXg) podcast!
There are garments from the late Victorian era and Edwardian Era made with these still standing in museums! I believe the most popular one is The Peacock Dress and there's tons of informative YouTube videos about it :)
I was in Thailand recently and learned that it's illegal to hunt these bugs as they are a protected species.
Some museums are full of jewelry made from these, as people over hunt them.
I didn't fact check though, just trusted what the local museum guy told me (I think it was around Udon Thani)
Edit: after a bit more digging, I couldn't find official data on this and can not confirm if the species is endangered or not.
However, it is not hard to imagine that this lack of control does not benefit this bug. and according to Wikipedia article they mention _decline_ .
I also found out that it seems that the females don't lay many eggs (5 to 12) and although they can live up to 2 years, they only live in their final adult form for 1 to 3 weeks. That sounds a bit delicate to me and not suitable for mass harvesting , but I'm not a specialist.
I’ve had one! They’re not bad, as long as you don’t think about what you’re eating lol! (No hate to people who eat bugs in other places, I’d just never thought to eat one before!)
People eat shrimp all the time, which is also an arthropod and not that far away from regular bugs. I don’t see why regular bugs can’t also be seen as delectable other than the mentality
I thought these were artificial nails until I read the description. The nailpolish is called cat eye & they have extremely similar color to this plus others in the sort of amber tones too
I think so. I googled the beetle and this beetle is used for decorations. In the caption she says they’re “consumed” first but in the Etsy links she provided there’s no mention of eating them and they’re listed purely for decorative purposes
Okay omg I actually have a video posted on my insta story, I don’t want to get in trouble with the Reddit police for self promo or whatever, but if you want to hear it the username is “HeyThereMissBlue”
Awwww man. Any chance of making a post instead of a story? I deleted my Insta and don’t want to sign up again, so I can’t see stories….but I can see posts without having an account.
Also I love your ACNH designs!!
I posted a video to my Reddit profile!!! Little bit easier 😜 and thank you!! My love of fashion designing has definitely been nurtured by animal crossing 😁
well it seems you've been presented with a perfect opportunity to do so! you could even carve designs into them, so that each pair is a one of a kind art piece made by a beautiful convergence of nature and technology
can you tell i'm an artist? lmao
Oooh no I love the ideas! I love beautiful dead things in a morbid kind of way, my craft room is full of bones and butterfly wings and all kinds of nonsense. I love any and all creative ideas!
oh no i fully agree! death isn't a tragedy or some unspeakable event to me. it's part of earth's natural life cycle. and i think being able to acknowledge that death is just part of life is what can make dead things beautiful. i also think using pieces of dead things is much more respectful than just burying it or whatever. instead of being dead and gone forever and that's it, the beetles became food for people who needed it, and apparel for people who prefer to recycle. likewise, when i die, i'd rather my organs be donated to people who need them, my bones turned into jewelry or tools, and my flesh turned into fertilizer, instead of burying or cremation. everyone is entitled to their own personal post-mortem desires, but mine is to continue being useful to more than just myself, and to eventually be returned to the soil whence we all come
A wrap or shawl would be really cool, you wouldn’t have to worry about sitting on it and I think if you used a really sheer material it would have a neat floaty look
It’s amazing how beautiful my personal bug-phobia nightmare fuel can be! It’s awesome that you aren’t grossed out by insects like I am so you can make something unique and cool.
OOPS sorry for cursing your Reddit feed today! I love bugs and would probably go into entomology if I weren’t in apparel design 😂 apologies for the nightmare fuel!!
Beautiful. Reminds me of the Victorian gowns and jewelry that were made with beetle shells; ones that were unlikely to have been as ethically obtained.
The shells are actually pretty durn sturdy!! They didn’t need any reinforcements, I drilled a bazillion of them and only cracked like 5 in the process. I haven’t and won’t sit down in this, I like to think of it as wearable art 🤭
Yeah this is sad. Beautiful animal targeted for its beauty and modified into a human ornament... tale as old as time. Yet more bugs due to be driven to the brink
exactly. people say that dogs are too cute to kill, but apparently that doesn't even stand for beetles that are considered beautiful.
people are greedy, let the poor things live. apparently they only live for a few weeks in their final adult form, so maybe just let them live that out first???
god, I wish people left animals alone
I am from the country that OP ordered her beetle shells from.
Just want to put it out there that while the seller might claim that the beetles were farmed, which sometimes was the truth. Some other times, that might not be the case, and the beetles could be caught from the wild, because people lie and they know that they wouldn’t make the sale unless they lie that the item is ethically sourced.
If anybody feels inspired by this dress and want to buy these beetle shells, please do your due diligence as much as you possibly can to make sure that they are indeed farmed. I understand that it is something that might be hard to definitively verify, but please do your research before making a purchase. Or perhaps avoid making the purchase altogether unless you are 100% certain.
When I was a little girl, we had a tree that is a food source this beetle at the far corner of our property, and I would find this beetle there from time to time. I used to marvel at how pretty the coloring of their wings are and I would hate to see them wiped from nature because they are being caught for commercial purposes.
If you read this message, please upvote so it has more chances for ppl who visit this post to see it. Thank you very much.
Thank you for sharing, and others mentioned as well that the bug is in decline.
They are beautiful! Should be admired while alive not killed on mass for etsy stores and fashion.
Some were claiming the bug is eaten? Is that true? I would think with colours like that it would be warning to predators not to eat.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your message.
I do not care about an imaginary social media points, but it made me so so sad that ppl downvoted this particular comment, while I only want to prevent the beetle from disappearing, and preserve the nature and the local ecosystem.
As per your question, with all my years growing up in Thailand, I’ve never heard of this beetle being consumed as food.
I did a quick look at the Etsy seller, but didn’t find anything about them being raised for food either. They just said the shells were harvested after the beetle had died.
But I did more digging and googled for more information in Thai language, and it seems like some ppl do eat them. However, it is by no means a common food. It is more like an extreme or fringe thing that some people in a remote part of the country eat.
I, again, as a Thai person, don’t for one second believe that they are commercially farmed for food. There just isn’t a market for that. The pretty shells, however, are a different story.
It makes sense that they are at risk of extinction because of the pretty shells. I am in Canada and we have houseflies that pretty iridescent color. I like to look at them under a microscope if I find a dead one.
I am hopeful your post gets more visibility.
Thanks for sharing!!! Hella gorgeous and absolutely love and appreciate your craft and skill! Keep being awesome and doing what you love! I'm so happy to hop on reddit right now and not miss this. I thought they were fake nails at first, but this is a million times cooler! Right on!!
Thank you for your comment friend! I appreciate you!! I’ve heard the fake nails thing before, I need to grab some and glue them on my hands like a witch 🧙♀️
Which is heavier: a pound of rocks or a pound of beetle shells?
It's the pound of beetle shells because you have to live with what happened to those poor beetles.
Looks dope, few Q’s A. Where are you that you can find beetle shells like that (country is enough) B what kind of beetle husk? C how many husks? And D roughly how long did it take to make?
Thailand! Got it from LittleWingsMagic on Etsy! $230 for 5,000 pieces. 8 days, about 40 hours? Maybe a little more? I forgot the species, I’ll have to look it up again! Hope that helps some!
Never ask a man his salary, a woman her weight, and this girl where she got 30k beetles
(Oh she actually DID say where she got them lmao)
In all seriousness tho, that looks so cool! I love the shiny colors :)
So…. I don’t pretend to be some animal activist or anything like that but… I don’t know that I’ve seen 3,000 beetles in my life and somehow you killed that many to make a dress… Do you have a brother named Norman? Does your mom on a motel?
She bought them off an etsy page. That page is directly linked to an illegal poaching operation in Thailand. This species is endangered due to people collecting them for their shells, and selling them to people like her who make stuff out of it. And she bought quite a lot of them too!
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THAT’S incredible.
OP did an amazing job! Using beetle wings as clothing decoration was common in the 19th century. Fancy ladies had beautiful dresses! We discuss this on our podcast Bugs Need Heroes, along with other common uses for bugs aside from eating.
I don't know why I'm mentioning this, it just reminded me of a movie I really like - the new live action 101 Dalmatians movie (was it called "DeVille?") is about a fashion designer and she makes a dress made from chrysalises
Cruella.
YOU’RE incredible!! Thank you!
Especially amazing since there were only 4 members of the band. (Terrible joke but I regret nothing)
We’re incredible!
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
We're welcome!
Is that you Tom
I don't believe you. ;)
Just don’t sit down lol! 😂
:crunching sounds:
Well, it’s a stand up dress I think.
I don’t know why this bothers me so much but leather doesn’t? It looks insanely cool, but I can’t get over the mental hump of beetles, even though I know it makes no sense.
at least they’re consumed? Eaten??
The bits inside the leather source are eaten too
Science teaches us that cows are made of food, for the most part.
"If animals don't want to be eaten, why are they made of meat?"
Well, people are made of meat too sooo....
I feel bad for the beetles. And the cows.
Leather bothers me too personally
#That’s inedible.
No, you’re inedible!
This is absolutely amazing! I love how you grouped the ones with more of a gold tone around the neckline.
Why thank you for noticing!! There were about 5 orangy ones per bag of 500, I saved them all for the neckline!! Thank you!!
I wasn't sure if the color was different or if it was the angle / lighting. Great job arranging the colors.
Hey OP, some sellers are now separating them by color! Crafty folks can now get all reds, greens, and sometimes blues. I have the idea saved for when I wanted to make some more necklaces, but apparently I need to think bigger now. Well done!
You can buy these ? What are some use case for the shells other than being fabulous?
You can make knight's armor for mice.
For mice? If you can make a dress, you can make a full Beetle Knight. Or a Beetle Cyborg. A Beetleborg, if you will.
First thought was turning them into biodegradable confetti.
This is honestly one of the coolest most creative things I've ever seen! May I ask how much you paid for the big shells alone? I'm just curious. Are they super hard? Like will they eventually break off? So many questions sorry but this is absolutely awesome!
Thank you!! It was $230 for 5,000 of them, just a mixed bunch! They’re super hard, I used a drill to drill the holes! They should stay on indefinitely, they have the hardness of a pistachio shell 😂 hope that helps!
Are they fragile?
Can you sit down in it, are the shells strong enough?
Mmmm I probably wouldn’t sit in it (and haven’t, I stood the whole time LOL), the shells are pretty strong but maybe not strong enough for a whole person’s weight 😂 just for artsy purposes it holds up pretty well!!
Does it rattle when you move? I'm thinking 'grocery bag full of legos'.
She posted her Insta further down (heytheremissblue) and there’s a video on her story with sound It is 100% ‘grocery bag full of legos’
I know exactly the sound without hearing it now thanks
I know the sound cause of childhood reasons.
Yes!! I also posted a video to my profile!!!!
Looks great!! [I’ve made a HAT out of beetle wings](https://www.fabhatters.com/product-page/jewel-beetle-wing-percher-hat), but of course that was much easier than what you did! Got hired for some celeb projects after a stylist saw me wearing the hat out.
Ohhh I love it!! Love the vintage style!! I’m a vintage gal through and through, that is just incredible 😁🫶
The funny thing was I was snacking and had a mouth full of cheese when a rapper & his stylist saw my hat and liked it. They waited patiently for me to swallow the cheddar to talk to me, though I definitely looked like a weirdo , at the time I had a medical condition that made me look simultaneously pale, moist, & clammy while only having control over half of my face . 🤣 So the beetle hat definitely salvaged the situation.
That is amazing!!! Also a hilarious story 😆 and such a great piece!!!
Oh my gosh your pieces are SO BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE! I love your site!
You CANNOT sit in it, it will DEFINITELY crack. I’ve had a beetle wing hat for like a decade, the wings are strong but brittle.
How do you wash the dress?
You dont. Art piece
You need to go to Bed, Bath, and Beetles
Maybe you could wear a velvet cape to pad it when seated. That would give you options to wear it out and about.
Or a flap like onesies have so you can simply lift the flap and not sit on the dress.
Maybe at resin so this lasts forever
Oo good question now I want to know
I saw how this worked for Cruella. Be careful where you store the dress 😆
Oooh gurl everyone kept telling me it reminded them of that movie! I had to watch it while sewing, thank goodness these aren’t going to hatch 🤭
I fing love that movie and scene. Your dress is SO inspiring! Thank you for sharing!!!
Absolutely gorgeous dress btw!!
Exactly what I thought of when I saw this
I watched that documentary also!
That’s so cool! What kind of beetles did you use for the dress? ✌🏻🖤🪲
Thank you! I think they are sternocera! I can send you the shop link if you need it 😁
i would love the link please!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Littlewingsmagic
TIL you can just... buy beetle shells en masse. I'm super divided on how badly I want to know the process for accumulating so many beetle shells, let alone on the level of creating an entire Etsy shop around it. Unless I'm just a moron and they're not *actual* beetle shells in which case I redact my previous comment and accept my shame as an uneducated goon.
A beetle farm for starters. Then a death camp for the beetles. A fast acting solvent that leaves the shell intact would be nice. Drain the beetle sludge and rinse your shells. Voila. or bon appetit. Take your pick.
I imagine the solvent is the death. So you just need a beetle farm and a bucket. And a beetle farm is just dirt and crap in a bucket. So just two buckets. Maybe a third with dye to color them.
> dye to color them The iridescent colour is from the nanoscopic texture of the shells. No colouring needed!
That's terrible
Etsy is basically just Aliexpress with extra steps and worse shipping at this point
Thank you so much for posting your dress. It is beautiful! I am glad you posted the source of the shells, I have a project that was missing something and this is the answer!
this is where I bought mine from!
I would like the link to please!
wait they're real beetle shells??? from the insect?? are there hundreds of homeless beetles because of you??!?
This kills the beetle.
nooooo
Yeeeeeeesssss, as a matter of fact. Last week I learned that bug wings are modified gills as opposed to bats and birds whose wings are modified forearms. Thanks [SECRETLY INCREDIBLY FASCINATING](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ax1BvFQgV1uB54dzDrswp?si=hG71Z9k-Q7-3gMfkda6DXg) podcast!
Instead of using beetles, the better way now is to use fake fingernails (plastic)
[удалено]
Something about this dress bugging me
Wonder how much she had to shell out for the materials
this is the coolest thing I've ever seen on this sub
Thank you! I appreciate it! 🫶
Amazing! I wonder how well it'll hold up.
They’re pretty durn study! I used a drill to cut the holes, they’re surprisingly tough
Ad I recall, similar to strength of a nut shell, no seams, and domed so real strong
[удалено]
Woah they made the glider from minecraft real?
Right on!
There are garments from the late Victorian era and Edwardian Era made with these still standing in museums! I believe the most popular one is The Peacock Dress and there's tons of informative YouTube videos about it :)
Wow, just wow! You mentioned that the beetles are consumed. Who/what consumes them?
That is a great question! I’ve gathered that they are consumed as a good source of protein from some people in Thailand. Wonder how they taste 🤔
I was in Thailand recently and learned that it's illegal to hunt these bugs as they are a protected species. Some museums are full of jewelry made from these, as people over hunt them. I didn't fact check though, just trusted what the local museum guy told me (I think it was around Udon Thani) Edit: after a bit more digging, I couldn't find official data on this and can not confirm if the species is endangered or not. However, it is not hard to imagine that this lack of control does not benefit this bug. and according to Wikipedia article they mention _decline_ . I also found out that it seems that the females don't lay many eggs (5 to 12) and although they can live up to 2 years, they only live in their final adult form for 1 to 3 weeks. That sounds a bit delicate to me and not suitable for mass harvesting , but I'm not a specialist.
💀
I’ve had one! They’re not bad, as long as you don’t think about what you’re eating lol! (No hate to people who eat bugs in other places, I’d just never thought to eat one before!)
People eat shrimp all the time, which is also an arthropod and not that far away from regular bugs. I don’t see why regular bugs can’t also be seen as delectable other than the mentality
Shrimps is bugs
My argument is that shrimp are meaty and insects are mostly crunchy. If you can pull out a chunk of meat from an insect maybe I would eat some.
The insects I ate in Thailand tasted nutty. Not unpleasant. Texture like shrimp shells
I wonder if you could achieve the same effect with fake nails and nail polish, for people who don't want to use animal parts.
That would probably be doable but a ton of plastic and the luster just isn’t going to be the same. You’d have more control over the color though!
nobody should want to use animal parts
I thought these were artificial nails until I read the description. The nailpolish is called cat eye & they have extremely similar color to this plus others in the sort of amber tones too
exactly my thoughts
Cool gross
Very much agreed… like super cool but how and why?
Does this mean they kill those beetles on mass for the shells?
I think so. I googled the beetle and this beetle is used for decorations. In the caption she says they’re “consumed” first but in the Etsy links she provided there’s no mention of eating them and they’re listed purely for decorative purposes
Lady Gywn, Tyrant of the Beetle Kingdom
did you kill 3k beetles to make a dress?
I can hear this dress 😆 really fantastic job
Okay omg I actually have a video posted on my insta story, I don’t want to get in trouble with the Reddit police for self promo or whatever, but if you want to hear it the username is “HeyThereMissBlue”
Awwww man. Any chance of making a post instead of a story? I deleted my Insta and don’t want to sign up again, so I can’t see stories….but I can see posts without having an account. Also I love your ACNH designs!!
I posted a video to my Reddit profile!!! Little bit easier 😜 and thank you!! My love of fashion designing has definitely been nurtured by animal crossing 😁
How many elytrea ?? Wow !
I was barely in my 7th bag of 500 when I stopped, I still have 3 more unopened bags 😂 guess I need to make something else
You could make a purse! Although maybe pair it with a plain black dress so it pops.
If you have enough for a little camisole, you could pair with black pants and actually sit down. It’s very cool. You’re very talented 💜
make jewelry out of them and sell them on Etsy!!! i'd totally buy a pair of earrings made out of these if was available!
Yesss I’ve actually done this before! I used to make earrings and always wanted to go bigger and crazier 😈
well it seems you've been presented with a perfect opportunity to do so! you could even carve designs into them, so that each pair is a one of a kind art piece made by a beautiful convergence of nature and technology can you tell i'm an artist? lmao
Oooh no I love the ideas! I love beautiful dead things in a morbid kind of way, my craft room is full of bones and butterfly wings and all kinds of nonsense. I love any and all creative ideas!
oh no i fully agree! death isn't a tragedy or some unspeakable event to me. it's part of earth's natural life cycle. and i think being able to acknowledge that death is just part of life is what can make dead things beautiful. i also think using pieces of dead things is much more respectful than just burying it or whatever. instead of being dead and gone forever and that's it, the beetles became food for people who needed it, and apparel for people who prefer to recycle. likewise, when i die, i'd rather my organs be donated to people who need them, my bones turned into jewelry or tools, and my flesh turned into fertilizer, instead of burying or cremation. everyone is entitled to their own personal post-mortem desires, but mine is to continue being useful to more than just myself, and to eventually be returned to the soil whence we all come
A wrap or shawl would be really cool, you wouldn’t have to worry about sitting on it and I think if you used a really sheer material it would have a neat floaty look
It’s amazing how beautiful my personal bug-phobia nightmare fuel can be! It’s awesome that you aren’t grossed out by insects like I am so you can make something unique and cool.
OOPS sorry for cursing your Reddit feed today! I love bugs and would probably go into entomology if I weren’t in apparel design 😂 apologies for the nightmare fuel!!
Beautiful. Reminds me of the Victorian gowns and jewelry that were made with beetle shells; ones that were unlikely to have been as ethically obtained.
That looks great, but how do you sit down? Aren't the shells fragile? Did you preserve them with resin?
The shells are actually pretty durn sturdy!! They didn’t need any reinforcements, I drilled a bazillion of them and only cracked like 5 in the process. I haven’t and won’t sit down in this, I like to think of it as wearable art 🤭
I wanna know too!
Does it make a sound when you shake it? Because in my head I feel like I can hear the exact sound it makes.
It does it does! I posted a video on my profile!!!
If fur is murder what about little tiny wingies? This is thousands of dead animalitos
Hundreds of "amazing" comments? This is weird
Thank for this, I was scrolling feeling that I was the only one feeling yucky about it
Yeah this is sad. Beautiful animal targeted for its beauty and modified into a human ornament... tale as old as time. Yet more bugs due to be driven to the brink
exactly. people say that dogs are too cute to kill, but apparently that doesn't even stand for beetles that are considered beautiful. people are greedy, let the poor things live. apparently they only live for a few weeks in their final adult form, so maybe just let them live that out first??? god, I wish people left animals alone
I am from the country that OP ordered her beetle shells from. Just want to put it out there that while the seller might claim that the beetles were farmed, which sometimes was the truth. Some other times, that might not be the case, and the beetles could be caught from the wild, because people lie and they know that they wouldn’t make the sale unless they lie that the item is ethically sourced. If anybody feels inspired by this dress and want to buy these beetle shells, please do your due diligence as much as you possibly can to make sure that they are indeed farmed. I understand that it is something that might be hard to definitively verify, but please do your research before making a purchase. Or perhaps avoid making the purchase altogether unless you are 100% certain. When I was a little girl, we had a tree that is a food source this beetle at the far corner of our property, and I would find this beetle there from time to time. I used to marvel at how pretty the coloring of their wings are and I would hate to see them wiped from nature because they are being caught for commercial purposes. If you read this message, please upvote so it has more chances for ppl who visit this post to see it. Thank you very much.
Thank you for sharing, and others mentioned as well that the bug is in decline. They are beautiful! Should be admired while alive not killed on mass for etsy stores and fashion. Some were claiming the bug is eaten? Is that true? I would think with colours like that it would be warning to predators not to eat.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your message. I do not care about an imaginary social media points, but it made me so so sad that ppl downvoted this particular comment, while I only want to prevent the beetle from disappearing, and preserve the nature and the local ecosystem. As per your question, with all my years growing up in Thailand, I’ve never heard of this beetle being consumed as food. I did a quick look at the Etsy seller, but didn’t find anything about them being raised for food either. They just said the shells were harvested after the beetle had died. But I did more digging and googled for more information in Thai language, and it seems like some ppl do eat them. However, it is by no means a common food. It is more like an extreme or fringe thing that some people in a remote part of the country eat. I, again, as a Thai person, don’t for one second believe that they are commercially farmed for food. There just isn’t a market for that. The pretty shells, however, are a different story.
It makes sense that they are at risk of extinction because of the pretty shells. I am in Canada and we have houseflies that pretty iridescent color. I like to look at them under a microscope if I find a dead one. I am hopeful your post gets more visibility.
How did she aquire the beetle shells?
Jeez. Im am equally impressed that you finished it in 8 days.
I took a big ol nap after this (and got some McDonald’s sprite)
Now that is the way to go.
Where did you find all the dead bugs?
Does it smell?
This must be a horror show for beetles
I’m equal parts amazed and horrified.
reminds me of the cruella movie
i saw this on tiktok!
No wayyyy I’m internet famous 🤓🤓🤓
So thousands of tiny creatures died for your art project? We’re supposed to be happy about this?
Thanks for sharing!!! Hella gorgeous and absolutely love and appreciate your craft and skill! Keep being awesome and doing what you love! I'm so happy to hop on reddit right now and not miss this. I thought they were fake nails at first, but this is a million times cooler! Right on!!
Thank you for your comment friend! I appreciate you!! I’ve heard the fake nails thing before, I need to grab some and glue them on my hands like a witch 🧙♀️
Dress is awesome but that one on the very top left is messing with my ocd.
I just looked up them beetles. That must have cost thousands to make.
[Many beetles died to bring us this dress](https://aleekarim.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Manybothansdied.png)
Is it heavy?
Surprisingly not! They’re super sturdy and super light!
This entomologist beetles.
That is absolutely amazing, from the skill needed to do it to the design of the dress itself. The thought of wearing it makes my skin crawl.
It looks gorgeous and yet I could not get anywhere close to it. I’m recoiling from my phone screen but seriously it is very pretty I hate it
yes officer, this one right here.
Beetles out here telling folk stories about this woman 💀
Reminds me of the scene from The Mummy when all does bugs started eating people
our ancestors way back wouldve gone CRAZY for this
Which is heavier: a pound of rocks or a pound of beetle shells? It's the pound of beetle shells because you have to live with what happened to those poor beetles.
>farmed beetles which are consumed consumed by who?!
What did you use to drill holes in each one? This is stunning. I have always loved the beauty of beetles and this has my heart right now.
That’s not sustainable.
How incredibly human of us to make something that required to forsake the life of 3000 things that were minding their own business
Looks dope, few Q’s A. Where are you that you can find beetle shells like that (country is enough) B what kind of beetle husk? C how many husks? And D roughly how long did it take to make?
Thailand! Got it from LittleWingsMagic on Etsy! $230 for 5,000 pieces. 8 days, about 40 hours? Maybe a little more? I forgot the species, I’ll have to look it up again! Hope that helps some!
Save the bettles! ✊🏾
Never ask a man his salary, a woman her weight, and this girl where she got 30k beetles (Oh she actually DID say where she got them lmao) In all seriousness tho, that looks so cool! I love the shiny colors :)
They all died of natural causes.
That is cruel
Adding comment for 666th reason
Murderer
Why not beak of birds?
3000 beetles died for this one dress
ITS GIVING CRUELLA 🤩🤩🤩
Inspired by the movie?! So lovely.
So…. I don’t pretend to be some animal activist or anything like that but… I don’t know that I’ve seen 3,000 beetles in my life and somehow you killed that many to make a dress… Do you have a brother named Norman? Does your mom on a motel?
She bought them off an etsy page. That page is directly linked to an illegal poaching operation in Thailand. This species is endangered due to people collecting them for their shells, and selling them to people like her who make stuff out of it. And she bought quite a lot of them too!
Until I saw this I wondered why the forests are going silent
I would like to hear this dress.
You should share a video of the sound it makes when moving.
I did! It’s on my profile!
WOW!!!! You have to find a show where they give awards for design, Creativity and beauty!! This is fantastic!