Namib Desert Beetles Harvest Fog Water

Some darkling beetles of the Namib Desert use coastal fog as a water source. In particular, *Onymacris unguicularis* climbs to a dune ridge on foggy mornings, faces the wind, and adopts a characteristic tilted posture. Fog droplets collect on its back, merge, and run toward the mouthparts. Other species may collect water from plants or sand surfaces, or construct small trenches in the sand. This is not one uniform behavior shared by all desert beetles; it is a set of specialized and often unpredictable water-gathering strategies. The contribution of special elytral surface properties is still studied; choosing the ridge and adopting the posture are themselves important.