In 1981, a pair of insect specialists observed a male jewel beetle attempting to mate with a discarded beer bottle (known in Australian slang as a ‘stubbie’). Upon further investigation, they found that male jewel beetles were not only frequently mistaking stubbies for females of their species, they actually preferred the stubbies, ignoring potential mates in order to hump the glass bottles because these bits of litter were more glossy and more golden than the female jewel beetles, and thus more sexually exciting to the males.32
