Charcoal beetles behave at fires the way locusts behave in cornfields, or like humans at a football game: they congregate en masse, they eat a lot, and they find mates. The beetles enter a fire to mate while it’s still burning and once the flames have subsided, females lay eggs under the bark of burned trees. The larvae depend on the woods of freshly-killed trees because they cannot cope with the living tree’s chemical defenses. This after-fire niche provides a no-pressure environment nearly free of predators and defenses.