Flame beetle

Flame beetles were beetles that lived in the "multilayered deathtrap" ecosystem of the forests of the planet Kashyyyk. Ranging from 4 to 12 centimeters long, these pests could deliver an extremely painful bite due to their mild venom. The flame beetles were named for their ability to spontaneously combust into flames through chemicals in their bodies. While a lone beetle wasn't considered too dangerous, this event normally occurred throughout a whole swarm of over 100 individuals, each beetle exploding with the effect of a fragmentation grenade. Flame beetles hatchlings gave off unique pheromones.

While Wookiee naturalists couldn't determine the reasons for their combustion, it was suspected that it was an extreme self-defense reaction. Normally the flame beetles only swarmed in the lower levels of wroshyr tree forests, and the few times when Wookiees did encounter them they could usually be driven off with simple smoke pots. During the Clone Wars a swarm of beetles set fire to Turren Lonarr's office. This was actually a distraction to cover his insertion of Trandoshan hunters into Kashyyyk.

In 1 ABY, a spacer found a specimen of this species in a storage room of the Mensix Mining Facility on Mustafar.

Text and facts from the “Flame beetle/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.