Deep beneath the sod of North America’s central tallgrass prairies, an intense chemical signal cuts through the cool night air. Within minutes of a small songbird or field mouse perishing in dense vegetation, a pair of large, glossy black beetles adorned with striking orange-red facial shields and wing markings descend onto the scene. These are American burying beetles ( Nicrophorus americanus ), hyper-specialized invertebrate scavengers capable of detecting volatile sulfur compounds emitted by fresh carrion from over two miles away using ultrasensitive chemoreceptors located on their clubbed antennae. Upon arrival, the beetle pair initiates a complex, subterranean engineering process that is virtually unique within the insect world. Working together under the cover of darkness, they excavate soft topsoil directly beneath the corpse, gradually lowering the carcass several inches below the soil surface. Once fully interred, ...