Beetle Emoji

A beetle, typically shown as a green or brown insect with six legs and antennae. 🪲 represents the order Coleoptera, the single most species-rich group of animals on Earth. With roughly 400,000 described species, beetles make up about 25% of all known animal species and 40% of all insects. Biologist J.B.S. Haldane reportedly quipped that God has "an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Beyond biology, the beetle carries serious cultural weight. In ancient Egypt, the scarab beetle was sacred to the god Khepri and symbolized rebirth, creation, and the daily journey of the sun. That reverence persisted for over 3,000 years. In modern pop culture, the beetle gave its name (with a spelling twist) to The Beatles, the most commercially successful band in history, and to the Volkswagen Beetle, one of the best-selling cars ever made.

In texting, 🪲 is used for anything bug-related: garden sightings, pest complaints, entomology discussions, or just reacting to creepy crawlies. It also gets pulled in for Beatles puns (🪲🎸), VW Beetle nostalgia, and scarab-themed conversations about Egypt or mythology.

🪲 shows up most in nature and outdoor content. Gardeners drop it next to plant emojis, insect enthusiasts use it in thread discussions about Coleoptera, and people post it when they find a beetle in their house (usually with 😱). On TikTok and Instagram, it pairs well with cottagecore and dark academia aesthetics.

Beatles fans have adopted 🪲 as a quick band reference, often pairing it with 🎸 or 🎵. The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie release in September 2024 also drove a spike in beetle emoji usage on social media, with fans using 🪲🪲🪲 as shorthand for the franchise. In science and education communities, the emoji appears in posts about biodiversity, ecology, and "did you know" threads about insect facts.

The beetle emoji was proposed by Aaron Ward in document L2/19-148 for Unicode 13.0. Ward's core argument was straightforward: there was already a lady beetle emoji (🐞) but no generic beetle, despite beetles being the most diverse order of insects on Earth. The proposal noted that search interest for "beetle" compared favorably to median animal and bird emojis, and that beetles had global cultural recognition from ancient Egypt to modern pop culture.

The Unicode Consortium approved the beetle emoji as part of Emoji 13.0 in 2020, assigning it codepoint U+1FAB2 with CLDR keywords "beetle" and "insect". It shipped alongside other new insect emojis that year, including 🪰 (fly), 🪱 (worm), and 🪳 (cockroach), finally filling a noticeable gap in the bug emoji roster.

1. 2019Aaron Ward submits beetle emoji proposal (L2/19-148) to the Unicode Consortium↗
2. 2020Approved in Unicode 13.0 / Emoji 13.0 as U+1FAB2 BEETLE
3. 2020First platform implementations roll out: Apple (iOS 14.2), Google (Android 11), Samsung (One UI 2.5)
4. 2024Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie release drives a spike in beetle emoji usage on social media

• •There are roughly 400,000 described beetle species, making Coleoptera the largest order of any animal. That's more species than all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish combined.
• •The dung beetle (Onthophagus taurus) can pull 1,141 times its own body weight, making it the strongest animal on Earth relative to size. That's like a person pulling six double-decker buses full of passengers.
• •Ancient Egyptians considered the scarab beetle sacred for over 3,000 years. They believed the dung beetle rolling its ball mirrored the sun god Khepri rolling the sun across the sky each morning.
• •Fireflies are technically beetles, not flies. The roughly 2,400 species in the family Lampyridae produce bioluminescent light that's nearly 100% energy-efficient, far outperforming LEDs.
• •The African dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus is one of the only known insects to navigate using the Milky Way. Researchers confirmed this by testing beetles in a planetarium.
• •Beetles have been around for roughly 300 million years. They survived the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs and kept diversifying afterward.
• •The Volkswagen Beetle, produced from 1938 to 2019, sold over 21 million units, making it one of the best-selling cars in history. It got its name from its rounded, beetle-like shape.
• •J.B.S. Haldane, one of the founders of population genetics, reportedly said that studying creation reveals God has "an inordinate fondness for beetles." The exact quote is debated, but the sentiment stuck.
• •The Beatles originally spelled their name "The Beatals" before settling on "Beatles," a deliberate beetle/beat pun. Early in 1963, Paul McCartney sketched a drum logo with antennae like a real beetle, though it didn't survive into the final design.